
Class _B-Rl^t 
Book 



r> 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HELPS TO FAITH 



BY J. H. GARRISON 



Helps to Faith. Cloth. . . . Sl.OO 

Alone With God. Cloth . . .75 

Heavenward Way. Cloth ... .75 
Half-Hour Studies at the Cross. Cloth .75 
A Modern Plea for Ancient Ttuths. 

Boards .35 

The Old Faith Restated. (Edited). 

Cloth 2.00 

Reformation of the Nineteenth 

Century. (Edited.) Cloth . . 2.00 

Rightly Dividing the Word. Paper .05 

CONGREGATIONALISTS AND DiSCIPLES. 

Paper .15 

Union and Victory. Paper ... .05 

Higher Criticism. Paper . . .05 

The Disciples of Christ. Paper (doz.) .10 
Our Movement; Its Origin and Aim. 

Paper 10 



HELPS TO FAITH 

/ 



A Contribution to Theological 
Reconstruction 



BY ■ •: , 

J/ h/garrison 



I 



Editor of The Christ 



lAN-EVA^dijLm' ' ■ ■ ' 



C'Ho3j 



CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 
ST. LOUIS. 



THE Library of 

CONGRESS. 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 2 1903 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS (X. 




^ 



\2j\ 



.^'^ 



< 



Copyright, 1903, by 
Christian Publishing Company 



n 

o 



DEDICATION 

To all lovers of Truth who are seeking a 
stable foundation 07t which to build a faith 
that will give strength^ cofnfort^ and in- 
spiration for service here^ and a triumphant 
hope for the life hereafter. 



PREFACE 

It is with no little diffidence, and witli no 
conscious trace of dogmatism, that the author 
puts forth this little volume, embodying some 
of the results of his own thinking, as a humble 
contribution to that reconstruction in theology 
which is so marked a feature of our times. 
The subjects treated, and the manner of treat- 
ing them, have been determined very largely by 
the aim of the book, as indicated by its title. 
The author feels that in this, as in all transition 
periods in the history of religious thought, 
there is danger that some will mistake the 
transient and changing forms of doctrine for 
the substantial foundations of Christian faith, 
and in yielding their former doctrinal opinions 
may surrender, also, their faith in God, and 
in Jesus Christ, through whom and in whom 
He has revealed Himself to humanity. He has 
had in mind, also, those who are untrained in 
theological subtleties, and whose minds are 
more or less confused by current discussions, 
but who sincerely desire to know and to accept 
the truth concerning the great questions of faith 

7 



Preface 

and duty, doctrine and destiny. To point out 
the original sources of faith and to clear away 
some of the debris of outgrown theories, so as 
to make faith easier, has been the author's aim 
in all these studies. May He who often chooses 
humble instruments to accomplish His wise 
purposes be pleased to make this volume a help 
to the faith of many honest, inquiring souls! 
So shall the author's purpose be fully realized. 



CONTENTS 



Preface ...... 7 

Introduction . . . . .13 

PART I 
SOME FACTS ON WHICH FAITH RESTS 



I. Testimony of the Religious In- 
stincts . . . . 

II. The Disharmony in Man's Nature 

III. God's Self-Revelation 

IV. Jesus as a Revelation of God 
V. Given Christ, Christianity Follows 

VI. What Then Shall I Do With Jesus? 

VII. Learning of Jesus 

VIII. At the Feet of Jesus 

IX. How THE Ideal is Made Real 

X. The Meaning of Christ's Death 

XI. The Nature of Faith and Its Re 
lation to Salvation 

XII. What Must We Believe? 

XIII. The Holy Spirit 

XIV. Christian Experience, or God in Us 

XV. The Church 

XVI. The Literature of the New Tes 
tament 

XVII. Is Revelation Continuous? . 

XVIII. 



19 
28 
36 
43 
51 
59 
67 
75 
84 
92 

101 
109 
117 
125 
133 

140 
150 



Christianity Vindicated by History 158 



Contents 

XVII. Is Revelation Continuous? . . 150 

XVIII. Christianity Vindicated by History 158 

PART II 
SOME OBSTACLES TO FAITH 

I. Objections Classified . . 167 

II. Origin of Moral Evil . . 170 

III. Election .... 174 

IV. Sin, Salvation, Retribution . 180 
V. Science and Revelation . . 187 

VI. Revelation Progressive . . 194 

VII. Abuse of Authority in Religion . 201 

VIII. Conversion — The Old Doctrine and 

THE New Light . . . 209 

IX. A Divided Church . . .217 

X. Moral Delinquencies . . 224 

XL The Slow Progress of the King- 
dom OF God .... 232 

XII. The Creed of Unbelief . . 239 



INTRODUCTION 

I CAN NOT agree witH those who characterize 
the present age as an age of doubt. This 
undeserved reputation is the result, let us 
think, of the tendency to investigate old beliefs, 
old forms of doctrine, old systems of philos- 
ophy, old theories of economics, and whatever 
else the present generation has inherited from 
those which have preceded it. But this sort of 
doubt, which desires to know the foundations 
on which things rest, and which seeks to verify 
the doctrines, traditions and philosophies which 
have come down to us, is entirely consistent 
with faith in God and His well-authenticated 
revelations. Such doubt is ever the forerunner 
of a larger and truer faith. It may be doubted 
if any previous age of the world has possessed 
more intelligent, well-grounded faith in the 
invisible God and in the eternal verities than 
the age in which we live. It is the author's 
belief that the present trend of thought and of 
feeling is toward faith and religion, rather than 
toward infidelity and irreligion. 

Nevertheless, while saying this much in vin- 
dication of the people who inhabit the world 

13 



Helps to Faith 

to-day, it is true beyond question that the faith 
of many is weak and ill-supported, and that 
some have made shipwreck of their faith 
through the defilement of their consciences and 
through neglect of those things which strengthen 
belief in God and in invisible realities. For some 
time the author has cherished the plan, when 
opportunity would offer, to prepare a brief work 
with the view of strengthening the faith of the 
weak and of helping those who are honestly 
seeking for an intelligent basis upon which to 
build faith. This he hopes to do in two ways: 
First, by a restatement of some of those funda- 
mental things on which faith rests, or by which 
it grows; and second, by seeking to remove 
some obstacles out of the way which hinder 
faith. The latter is scarcely less important 
than the former, because of the tendency of the 
popular mind to confuse the theories and tradi- 
tions of men which have become attached to 
Christianity in its passage through the cen- 
turies as barnacles cleave to the keel of a vessel, 
with the facts, truths and principles which 
enter vitally into the kingdom of God. 

So much as to method. The motive which 
lies behind this effort is the desire to con- 
tribute, if only in some small degree, to the 

14 



Introduction 

building up of a stronger and more intelligent 
faith in God, as He is revealed in Jesus Christ, 
and His spiritual reign among men. The most 
valuable possession a rational soul can have is 
a simple yet strong and robust faith that brings 
one into communion with God and that holds 
him to a life of loyal service to God and His 
fellowmen through all the temptations, vain 
philosophies and modern vagaries *'of science, 
falsely so-called.*' Such a faith brings its 
possessor into the enjoyment of a spiritual 
inheritance of which neither the vicissitudes of 
life nor death itself can deprive him. It is the 
light by which the believer walks in the dark 
days when earthly helps have failed him. It 
is an invisible chain that binds his soul to the 
throne of God and holds it secure amid all the 
storms and tempests which may beat upon it. 
It is the secret of strength in our weakness, of 
joy in our sorrows, of hope in our despair, of 
triumph even in our defeats. 

It is clear from what is stated above, that 
by the t&rm faith is meant, not a set or formula 
of abstract doctrines, but the soul's spiritual 
vision — the power that apprehends the invis- 
ible. There is in every normal, rational 

human being what may be called the faith- 
is 



Helps to Faith 

faculty. This only needs sincerity and purity 
of heart, the hungering and thirsting after 
righteousness, the necessary instruction in the 
things of the kingdom of God, to enable it to 
perceive spiritual realities, to apprehend truth, 
to lay hold of it with avidity, to recognize the 
reality of God and of His will as the supreme 
law of the universe and as the highest motive 
to righteous living. This faculty, like every 
other power of the soul, needs cultivation, 
needs something, in other words, on which to 
feed in order that it may grow and become the 
controlling force in all our choices and actions. 
While it is the duty of religious teachers to 
cultivate faith in the people, it is no less the 
duty of every man to seek to increase his faith 
by all the means within his power so that he 
may be what God would have him to be, and 
achieve what it is possible for the soul to 
achieve that lives and labors under the * 'power 
of the world to come." Who of us may not 
say, with one of old, *'I/ord, I believe; help 
thou mine unbelief!" To Him must we look 
for that increase of faith which the tasks and 
trials of the Church demand to-day, and His 
guidance is humbly invoked in presenting to 
the public these "Helps to Faith." 

16 



PART I 

Some Facts on which Faith Rests 



(2) 



TESTIMONY OF THE RELIGIOUS 
INSTINCTS 

When we would examine the bottom facts of 
religious faith, we must deal with the founda- 
tional fact of human nature. Both the need 
and the capacity for faith in an invisible God 
grow out of the fact that man was created in 
the image of God — a rational, moral and self- 
determining being. But, omitting for the 
present the origin of man, or the source of his 
capacities, we are to deal first of all with 
human nature as we find it — its capacities, its 
aspirations, its longings, its needs. About 
these there can be little room for differences of 
opinion, and we are now seeking basal and 
accepted facts for the ground of our argument. 

Taking man as we find him, what is he? 
The most obvious fact, perhaps, is that he 
possesses a body with certain simple but press- 
ing needs which clamor for attention.* But 
these material needs having been met and 



* Instead of saying, "Man has a soul," it is truer to fact to say 
that man is a soul, and has a body. The soul or spirit is not the 
thing possessed, but is itself the possessor. 

19 



Helps to Faith 

satisfied, there are still other and higher needs 
which manifest themselves and require sat- 
isfaction. The rational nature asserts itself 
by asking questions, first, perhaps, concerning 
its material environment, and how this may- 
be used to meet the needs of the body. It 
soon rises, however, to higher themes, and asks 
whence man came, why he came, and whither 
he is going. The fact that man raises such 
questions differentiates him at once from all 
lower orders of being. The highest animals 
below man are not capable of inquiring into 
their origin, nature and destiny. This capacity 
in man furnishes a new basis of classification, 
and separates him by a wide chasm from all 
lower forms of life. 

As this reasoning and questioning being con- 
tinues his investigations, he perceives within 
himself a higher capacity than that of mere 
reasoning. He is conscious of a desire to wor- 
ship. He is, by the very law of his being 
and by the constitution of his moral nature, 
religious. Food for the body and knowledge 
for the mind do not satisfy the insatiable long- 
ings of the heart. There is an instinct, if we 
may not call it knowledge, of the infinite and 
of the eternal. He becomes dimly conscious of 

20 



Testimony of the Religious Instincts 

his obligations to a being or beings superior to 
himself, to whom he owes homage and worship. 
This religious instinct has found expression in 
some form in every tribe or people that has 
made any progress out of mere animalism. If 
there be an apparent exception to this general 
rule, it is because, in all probability, we have 
not yet fully understood the tribe or nation 
which is supposed to constitute the exception. 
At any rate, the religious nature is sufficiently 
universal to leave no doubt that it enters into, 
and constitutes an essential part of, our com- 
mon human nature. It has been a fundamental 
mistake of the materialistic class of scientists, 
of those sometimes denominated naturalists^ 
that they have failed to make any account of 
man's religious nature in the application of the 
inductive method of reasoning. Surely it must 
be a very imperfect induction of facts that 
ignores the most significant and characteristic 
facts of human nature! Small wonder that 
wrong conclusions have been reached concern- 
ing man and his relations to the invisible when 
there have been left out of the premises such 
patent and commanding facts as man's moral 
nature and religious instincts! 

One of the changes which have come over 

21 



Helps to Faith 

modern scientific and philosophical thought is 
the clearer and more universal recognition of 
the essential place which religion holds in 
man's nature. This has resulted from a more 
careful and critical study of man, from a truer 
and profounder psychology, and from a truer 
application of the inductive method of reason- 
ing which must take note of all the facts 
and make room for these facts in its theories. 
There is practical unanimity among the world's 
thinkers to-day as to the reality and normality 
of man's religious nature, and therefore as to 
the necessity of religion in order to man's com- 
plete and normal development. There is abso- 
lutely no clue to man's history in the past, and 
no explanation of the spiritual phenomena 
associated with human history, without the 
recognition of this basal fact, that man is by 
nature and endowment a worshiping being. 
This at least is the conclusion to which the 
best thought of modern times has led us. We 
may accept it, therefore, as a secure basis from 
which to reason. 

But if the religious nature in man be normal, 
organic, whence came it? Why should man 
possess a nature that leads him to reverence 
and worship a superior being if no such being 

22 



Testimony of the Religious Instincts 

exists? It avails nothing to attribute man's 
origin to Force, and spell it with a capital. 
Man does not worship blind material force. It 
is only the intelligence, the thought, the will, 
in a word, the personality, that lies behind 
force that calls out man's homage and worship. 
The irresistible conclusion is that if religion be 
normal and the crowning feature of man's na- 
ture, then there is a Being who so created him, 
and who is worthy of his love, of his worship 
and of his obedience. And this is true whether 
we accept the evolutionary method of creation 
or the theory of a direct and immediate crea- 
tion, for in either case there must be a Creator, 
and the facts of human nature, as we have in- 
dicated them, find their only explanation in a 
Creator who possesses in an infinite degree 
those qualities and faculties which we find ger- 
minal in man. He is not to be reasoned with 
who would argue that man's rational, moral 
and religious nature, his splendid idealism, his 
lofty aspirations and longings after the infinite, 
sprang from the fortuitous combination of 
atoms, and the accidental operation of blind 
material forces. The fact of human nature, as 
we see it and know it, is proof irrefutable of 
the existence of an All-wise and All-gracious 

23 



Helps to Faith 

Being who is the Author of man, and who is 
guiding his development toward some far-off, 
majestic consummation. 

If 'Hhe heavens declare the glory of God and 
the firmament showeth His handiwork,'^ even 
more so does the rational and moral nature of 
man declare His glory and power. *'Two 
things,'' says Kant, ^'fill me with awe; the 
starry heavens above me and the moral law 
within me." The better we understand the 
significance of this moral law within us, this 
higher nature, crying out for satisfaction which 
the world cannot give, the more assuredly will 
we understand that He who gave us that moral 
nature is the Creator and Law-giver of the uni- 
verse — the Being worthy of our sincerest wor- 
ship — who made us for Himself and who alone 
can satisfy the soul's deepest and highest needs. 

It may be said that, while it is true beyond 
reasonable doubt that the testimony of man's 
intellectual nature to the existence of intelli- 
gence in the material world, does prove the 
existence of an Infinite Mind in the universe, 
yet there is less satisfactory proof that this 
Mind is a personality who is good and gracious, 
and worthy of man's love and worship. 

But this conclusion fails to give full value to 

24 



Testimony of the Religious Instincts 

the witness which man's religious instincts 
bear to the existence of a being worthy of our 
worship. ''Religion as we have seen, is natural 
to man, and practically universal. It does not 
wait for proof of the existence of God; it 
springs up from an intuitive sense of unseen 
realities. Man looks upward and prays; he 
thus bears testimony to his sense of dependence 
and obligation; he thus recognizes a power and 
an authority above him; and he thus assumes 
that there is some one to whom his prayer may 
properly be addressed. Religion may be crude 
and superstitious, and the object of worship 
unknown and misjudged; but the universal im- 
pulse and practice declare that religion belongs 
to the nature of man, and that there is a Being 
above man for him to worship. The religious 
constitution of man asserts that there is some 
Being whom man may worthily address in 
prayer. 

"We instinctively trust our intellectual 
powers, and experience proves that we are safe 
in doing so, for we and the world are made 
upon one method. Are we equally safe in 
trusting the testimony of this religious intui- 
tion? Certainly we are, if we live in an honest 
world. Religious worship, obedience, and 

25 



Helps to Faith 

aspiration are as normal to man as sensation or 
reasoning. Any one of these powers may be 
misinformed or misdirected, yet they are 
genuine powers of man. Sense and reason are 
normally trustworthy, and so, we instinctively 
affirm, is the impulse to aspire, obey and wor- 
ship in the presence of a higher Power. . . . 
In a world of reality every power has its coun- 
terpart,— the eye has light, the reason has 
truth, and the religious nature has God. If 
the religious nature in man has no real being 
corresponding to it, no one who is worthy of 
the adoration and trustful obedience that man 
is moved to give to One above him, then we 
can only say that man was born with his high- 
est nature looking out into empty space. He 
was endowed with noble powers that can only 
mislead and disappoint him; and thus he comes 
into being possessed of a nature that is essential- 
ly false. Moreover, it is the highest in him that 
is false. But if human nature is false in its 
highest region, — false by being made so in its 
very constitution — then we cannot be sure that 
it is true in any department of its activity. If 
we say that man's highest nature naturally 
deceives him, we resign all right to rely upon 
our nature or the validity of our powers, and 

26 



Testimony of the Religious Instincts 

confidence in our mental processes is at an end. 
We are compelled to trust our own powers just 
as truly in the religious realm as in the physical 
or the intellectual. If we are not safe in this, 
we are sure of nothing; and the powers that we 
are compelled to trust affirm that there is One 
above us who is worthy of our love and adora- 
tion.''* 

That the testimony of our religious nature is 
abundantly confirmed by the experience of the 
best and most advanced people of the world 
wall appear in subsequent chapters. It has 
been made sufficiently clear, so far, that if we 
are to rely on the testimony of our religious 
nature, which is man's highest nature, we 
must conclude that there is a God answering 
to the demands of this nature, who is worthy 
of our worship and our service. 



♦Clarke's "Outline of Christian Theology," pp. 118-120. 



27 



II 

THE DISHARMONY IN MAN'S NATURE 

We have already seen that man's religious 
nature is a fact that must be reckoned with in 
any true estimate of man and of his needs. We 
have seen, too, that the meaning of this fact of 
man's moral and religious nature is that there 
is something which answers to this religious 
need, and that this something can be nothing 
else than the Being who created man with these 
powers and capacities, and who possesses in an 
infinite degree those qualities and attributes 
which we find germinal in man. Since man 
possesses a mental, moral and volitional nature, 
thereby making him a personality, we are 
forced to the conclusion that the Being who 
gave man this endowment is also a person, and 
a person of such power and character as to 
make him a supreme object of man's worship. 

We come now to deal with another fact of 
human nature which all have observed, and 
which all must admit to be a fact. We refer to 
the disharmony which exists in our human 
nature as we find it to-day. When each one 

28 



The Disharmony in Man's Nature 

of us looks closely into his own nature, lie 
observes two opposing tendencies. On the one 
hand he is conscious of possessing lofty aspira- 
tions, a sense of approval of that which is right 
and pure and good, and of a desire to possess 
those qualities which his mind approves. On 
the other hand he perceives that there is an- 
other law in his members which tends to thwart 
his higher aims and desires, and to pull him 
downward. He finds that his appetites and 
passions, his fleshly lusts and longings, are at 
war with the other part of his nature which 
prompts him to higher and better things. We 
need no Bible, nor special revelation from God, 
nor prophet, nor priest, nor preacher, to make 
us aware of the reality of this conflict between 
these antagonistic elements in our nature. It 
is a matter of daily experience with us. One 
of the greatest characters of history, in describ- 
ing this conflict within himself, has said: *'For 
the good which I would I do not; but the evil 
which I would not, that I practice. ... I 
find then the law, that, to me who would do 
good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of 
God after the inward man: but I see a different 
law in my members, warring against the law of 
my mind, and bringing me into captivity under 

29 



Helps to Faith 

tlie law of sin which is in my members.'' This 
was not only the experience of Paul before his 
conversion, but it has been to a greater or less 
extent the experience of every man. 

We have all observed this fact and felt its 
influence in our lives; but have we all inquired 
the significance of this fact, and sought to 
understand its meaning? What does it mean? 
It means that, in the first place, man is not all 
fleshly and material, as he would seem to be, at 
first, to the eye of sense. It means that in 
addition to his physical nature and organiza- 
tion, he is endowed with a higher nature which 
asserts its rights and protests against living the 
mere fleshly or material life. If this were not 
so, there would be no conflict. There is no 
evidence that the animals experience any such 
discord in their nature. Man has something 
more than mere intelligence to diflerentiate him 
from the lower orders of beings. He has a 
spiritual hunger which the material world can- 
not satisfy. This is another fact of human 
experience. Men may drown this spiritual 
hunger in the sea of sensual enjoyment, for a 
time, so that its cravings may be unheeded, but 
there come moments in which it will assert 
itself with tremendous power, and reveal to 

30 



The Disharmony in Man's Nature 

man his incompleteness, his imperfections, his 
need of something higher and more enduring 
than wealth, or pleasure or worldly honor. 

It is evidence of the wonderful law of love 
that encompasses the world, that even man's 
sin is made to bear witness to the reality of 
God, and to His righteous character. Who of 
us has not known what it is to cower under 
the lash of an outraged conscience when we 
have knowingly violated God's law? But 
what was that verdict of conscience against us 
but God's voice, speaking through our moral 
nature and condemning us? As long, there- 
fore, as we feel self-condemned for our wrong 
actions we may know that God has not aban- 
doned us, but is still calling us to repentance. 
This very conflict in our nature is proof of the 
reality of God and of man's moral nature. 

Another meaning of this fact of man's spirit- 
ual unrest is, that man, being made in God's 
image, can find rest and satisfaction only as he is 
brought into harmony with his Maker. This is a 
deduction from human experience, no less than 
it is a matter of revelation. Experience and 
observation teach that those who conform to 
the laws of their higher nature, living soberly, 
righteously and godly, resisting the solicita- 

31 



Helps to Faith 

tions of their lower natures to do evil, are those 
who find peace and spiritual rest. The man of 
the world as well as the Christian can take 
cognizance of this fact. Indeed he knows from 
his own experience that when he has resisted 
the evil in his own nature and followed the 
promptings of his conscience, he has been more 
at peace within himself than when he has re- 
sisted his higher nature and followed the lead- 
ings of his baser passions. If he would allow 
this experience to guide him to its logical 
result, it would lead him to obedience to God, 
in all things. 

But there is still another meaning to this fact 
of the conflict which exists in human nature 
which has an important bearing on the line of 
thought which we are following. It is a fact — 
and let it be noted that we are dealing now 
with the facts of human consciousness and 
human experience — that finds abundant corrob- 
oration in the history of each individual, that 
this conflict between the higher and the lower 
nature ends in the defeat of the higher, and the 
triumph of the lower, unless there be some sort 
of spiritual reinforcement or help given to 
man's higher nature. Account for it as we 
may, whether by the theory that the spirit is 

32 



The Disharmony in Man's Nature 

clothed here with a fleshly body, and the bodily 
appetites and passions are more urgent and 
clamorous than the cravings of the spirit, or on 
the theory of evolution, that man is gradually 
passing from the animal life into a higher type 
of being, and has not yet escaped the thraldom 
of his animalism, or on the theory of the "fall 
of man" and his consequent moral depravity, 
the fact itself remains undisputed and indis- 
putable, that man left to himself without help 
from above remains under the dominion of his 
lower nature, and does not rise into the free- 
dom of the spirit, nor attain to the highest and 
noblest type of character. 

No fact recorded in biblical history ought to 
commend itself more readily to our acceptance 
than that of the transgression of our first par- 
ents and the consequences of that sin. Child- 
hood is an Eden in which we have all dwelt. 
The memory of its sweet innocency and trust- 
fulness lingers with us as a fragrance wafted to 
us from some garden of paradise. But we can 
most of us recall a time when we consciously 
disobeyed and did that which we knew to be 
wrong. We remember, too, the stings of con- 
science, and how we were exiled, for a time at 
least, from the delights of that beautiful Eden 

(3) 33 



Helps to Faith 

that lies back there in the early morning of our 
childhood. But whatever may be our view of 
the origin of sin, its presence in our lives 
as a disquieting, peace-destroying, disharmo- 
nizing influence, is a most palpable and painful 
fact. The universality of this disharmony is 
proof, too, of the solidarity of the race, and 
that we are sharers in a common lot, and need 
a common remedy. 

The highest meaning, then, of this dishar- 
mony between our lower and higher natures is 
that God, or the Being who placed us here in 
the flesh and gave us these higher aspirations, 
must have made provision for the needs of 
this higher nature in order that it may ulti- 
mately triumph over the lower, and so bring 
man to the realization of the destiny for which 
he was created. We cannot conceive that a 
Being whose character is wise and beneficent, 
and who created man with such possibilities of 
moral and spiritual development, would place 
him here in the world under conditions which 
would involve the defeat of the very aim he 
had in view in his creation. This would violate 
both His wisdom and His goodness. We are 
led, therefore, by the very meaning of the facts 
of human nature, as we see them and know 

34 



The Disharmony in Man's Nature 

them in our own lives and in the lives of those 
about us and from the records of human history, 
to the conclusion that the Being who created 
man and placed him here in the world, has 
made provision for his redemption from the 
power of sin, and also, for the continuity of 
man's existence beyond the experience which 
men call death, to the fulfillment of his highest 
hopes and aspirations. 

In future chapters let us seek to discover 
what provision has been made for man's rescue 
from the power of sin and death, and whether 
such provision commends itself to man's reason 
and faith as worthy of God, and wisely adapted 
to human needs. 



35 



Ill 

GOD'S SBIvF-REVEIvATlON 

Our reasoning, so far, lias brouglit us to the 
conclusion that tlie Being who made man and 
who gave him his religious nature, which the 
earth and all its material blessings cannot 
satisfy, would make provision for such nature 
in a religion which would satisfy its deepest 
needs and highest aspirations. We are thus 
brought face to face with the question whether 
such a religion has been given to man, and if 
so, what is its character? 

If the Being who created man is both wise 
and good to an infinite degree, as the facts 
which we have examined have led us to believe, 
would He not inevitably seek to disclose Him- 
self to man? Is it not inevitable that any 
religion v/hich would satisfy the higher nature 
of man created in the image of God must come 
along the line of the knowledge of God's 
character and will? This seems self-evident. 
Religion has to do with man's relations to God 
and the duties which grow out of these rela- 
tions. How can these be understood without a 

36 



God's Self-Revelation 

knowledge of God's will and character? It 
follows, then, that God would begin a process 
of self-revelation, making known His being 
and character just as fast as man would be able 
to receive these revelations. To conclude 
otherwise would be to impute to the Creator a 
desire and purpose to keep men in ignorance 
of the most vital facts and truths in the uni- 
verse, and this would be, of course, in violation 
of the conclusions we have already reached 
concerning His character and His purpose in 
creating man. What we should look for, then, 
from a priori reasoning, v/ould be the evidences 
of such revelation. Where and how has God 
revealed Himself to man? His wisdom and 
Godhood are manifest in the material universe 
which He has created. This is not sufficient 
of itself, however, to acquaint man with the 
character of God and with His will concerning 
us. There are those who limit God's revela- 
tion to the visible works of His hand; but such 
an idea does not meet the demands of the case, 
as we have seen from the facts of human 
nature. It does not meet man's deepest needs. 
Where are we to look for any additional revela- 
tion? 

Before answering this question, let us ask, 

37 



Helps to Faith 

To whom would God be most likely to give tlie 
fullest and clearest revelation of Himself? 
According to the principle already stated, it 
would be to those most capable of receiving the 
knowledge which He would impart. If we 
should find, therefore, in the ancient records of 
any particular people or nation, a revelation of 
God's character and will far superior, in its 
moral teaching and in its conception of the 
divine Being, to that given in the records or 
religions of other ancient peoples, we should 
not conclude that God is a respecter of persons 
and has chosen to lift up one nation and leave 
all the rest in ignorance. Since all men, every- 
where, have the same religious needs, and are 
equally the creatures of His hand, we cannot 
doubt that any revelation which He would 
make through any person or nation would be 
designed for the benefit of all men of all nations. 
If, however. He found one people more open to 
receive religious instruction, or a knowledge of 
the true God, than others. He would naturally 
reveal Himself to those in a larger measure 
than to others, and make them the custodians 
of His word for the benefit of all the rest. 
Such a course would be in entire harmony with 
both His wisdom and His goodness, and would 

38 



God's Self-Revelation 

be carrying out His plan to bring all men to 
the knowledge of Himself and of His will. 

What we have seen to be the natural and 
reasonable procedure on the part of God in His 
self- revelation to men, so far as our finite judg- 
ments are able to understand such high matters, 
we find to be the very course which God has 
pursued. In the ancient records of the Hebrew 
race, which have come down to us, there is 
contained an account of the creation of the 
heavens and the earth, and all the lower forms 
of life, of man and the early history of the race, 
and a number of theophanies, or divine self- 
manifestations, together with moral precepts, 
religious rites, and prophetic utterances con- 
cerning God's will, man's duty and the future 
progress of God's purposes on the earth, which, 
in the lofty conception of God's character — His 
unity, His righteousness and holiness and His 
compassion toward men — and in the purity of 
its ethical teaching and in its far-reaching fore- 
cast of the purposes of God, transcends by 
infinity all the other religious books of antiquity 
found among the various tribes and peoples of 
earth. This is no biased statement, true only 
as it appears from the point of view of a Chris- 
tian believer, but is supported by a consensus 

39 



Helps to Faith 

of the best moral sentiment of the world. We 
now know more about the ancient religions of 
the world than any other previous generation 
has known. The buried past has been largely 
disentombed, and modern scholarship has been 
able to decipher the ancient hieroglyphics of 
the remote past, and read the religious concep- 
tions and rites of antique nations which were 
feeling after God, in their blindness, if haply 
they might find Him. We are able, therefore, 
to make a comparison between the religion 
contained in the records of the Hebrew race 
and the ethnic religions and the idolatrous 
systems of the long past, as never before. The 
result of this study of comparative religions is, 
that the book which we call the Old Testament 
contains a unique revelation of God's character 
and will, indicating that He had chosen the 
Hebrew people because of their special fitness 
to receive and to be the custodians of His 
revelations to the race. In its conception of 
the oneness of God, and of His holiness, of 
man's origin and nature, and of his duty to 
God and his fellowmen; in the noble characters 
portrayed through whom God speaks to the 
world, and in the high optimistic notes con- 
cerning the future of the race, which it con- 

40 



God's Self-Revelation 

tinually sounds, it bears indisputable evidence 
of the divine inbreathing by which its writers 
were enabled to understand God and His way 
with men. For the present, however, the fact 
of inspiration is not insisted on, but only the 
vast superiority of the revelations contained in 
the Old Testament to all other previous or con- 
temporaneous religious systems. 

But important and sublime as these revela- 
tions of God in the Old Testament are, and 
superior as they are admitted to be to the 
religious ideas found in any other nation, they 
do not meet fully the needs of the human soul. 
They are educative, illuminative, and prophetic 
of something better and higher. None saw 
more clearly the imperfections of past revela- 
tions than the Hebrew prophets themselves. 
Standing on the mountain-top of their prophetic 
office, they foretold a fuller and more perfect 
revelation. What these prophecies are the in- 
quiring reader may find for himself by consult- 
ing the Old Testament Scriptures. Concern- 
ing the method, nature and significance of this 
last revelation, we shall speak more fully in 
later chapters. It has been our purpose, thus 
far, beginning with the undisputed facts of 
human nature, to bring the inquiring soul by 

41 



Helps to Faith 

necessary inferences and conclusions from these 
facts, face to face with God's supreme revela- 
tion to men. With the vast meaning of that 
revelation, we are now to deal. 



42 



IV 
JESUS AS A REVEI.ATION OF GOD 

No ONK would deny that if it were God's 
purpose to disclose Himself to men, He would 
not be satisfied with less than a perfect revela- 
tion. Anything less than the best possible 
revelation of His character would not be con- 
sistent with His purpose to make Himself 
known, nor with what we know of His works 
in nature and in man. But the best possible 
revelation is not by words, which at best are 
imperfect vehicles of thought. When truth 
comes to man clothed in a living personality, it 
possesses a clearness, a convincing power, a 
moral grandeur, a power to command assent, 
which no verbal message can convey. Besides, 
it was not simply abstract truth that God 
wished to make known to men, but His char- 
acter, and this could be portrayed in no other 
way so effectively as through a living, perfect 
personality embodying the essential attributes 
of Deity. 

Let us take, for instance, the element of love 
which we are led to believe is the ruling motive 

43 



Helps to Faith 

of God's character. We may be sure that His 
chief concern, then, would be to convince men 
that His attitude toward them is that of love 
and good will. How can this fact be convinc- 
ingly impressed upon the world, except in some 
lofty act of sublime self-sacrifice on the part of 
God for mankind? The love that is conveyed 
by words, merely, is a spurious article. Here 
is one of the great underlying reasons for the 
incarnation — for the Word's becoming flesh and 
dwelling among men. The moral necessity for 
the incarnation affords the highest grounds of 
its reasonableness and credibility as an historic 
fact. That such necessity existed is as certain 
as that it was necessary for man to be con- 
vinced of God's love in order that he might, 
in return, love and obey Him. The highest 
proof of God's love was not given until it could 
be stated as a fact that ^'God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten Son that 
whosoever believeth on Him might not perish 
but have everlasting life." 

These considerations prepare us for consider- 
ing the most remarkable phenomenon of his- 
tory, the personality of Jesus of Nazareth. He 
appeared, according to the scriptural statement, 
*4n the fullness of time." It was at the con- 

44 



Jesus as a Revelation of God 

fluence of three great civilizations — the Greek, 
Roman and Hebrew, — that this unique char- 
aracter appeared as a Teacher of man. These 
three civilizations had done their best, and the 
race was sinking steadily deeper in the mire of 
its own degeneracy. Greece had offered her 
sculpture and her literature, Rome her vast 
empire and world-wide government, and the 
Hebrew race had contributed a marvelous his- 
tory and a moral law unequaled in the world's 
religions; and yet in spite of these forces the 
world was going steadily from bad to worse. 
Surely the time was ripe for the appearance of 
that Teacher of whom. Moses and the prophets 
had spoken, who would introduce into life a 
diviner power than it had ever known before. 
At any rate there stands the fact of Jesus of 
Nazareth to be accounted for. It is an undis- 
puted fact. Not only is the fact of Jesus Him- 
self outside the realm of dispute or uncertainty, 
but His unique character, also, is attested by 
every writer, whether he be skeptic or believer, 
who has ever thoughtfully considered it. In 
seeking for a solid basis of fact on which to 
build a superstructure of faith, we are justified 
in calling attention to this supreme fact of his- 
tory, and in asking its meaning and signifi- 
cance. 

45 



Helps to Faith 

No one has a right to call himself a skeptic 
or an infidel who has not given due considera- 
tion to this fact of Jesus and its meaning. Nor 
can the force of this fact be evaded by falling 
back on that fashionable form of modern skep- 
ticism known as agnosticism, which claims that 
nothing certain can be known about God or 
religion. Man cannot say of this fact, as the 
late G. H. Lewes in his History of Philosophy 
said of religion in general, *'It confesses its 
inability to furnish knowledge with any avail- 
able data.'* Jesus Himself deprived agnosti- 
cism of any excuse for such a plea, when He 
called attention to His own personality as the 
fundamental fact of religion. As a recent 
writer has said, *'To every such one — be his 
agnosticism intellectually self-satisfied, sen- 
sually self-indulgent, or neither of these but 
only sad — comes the great Master of the soul 
with His revolutionary restatement of the 
problem of religion. What He says, in effect, 
is this: You say you cannot answer the question 
of God; it is beyond your ken. Well, here is 
the way in which to approach this question. 
What is your attitude towards Me? Now, 
whatever else this question may be, it is at 
least this — it is answerable. Your agnosticism 

46 



Jesus as a Revelation of God 

cannot apply here. If the being of God is be- 
yond your ken, the fact of Christ is not. He is 
a fact of history, cognizable as any other 
phenomenon. And your mental and moral 
conclusions on this answerable question are the 
true beginnings of an answer to the apparently 
inscrutable problem of religion."* 

This is what Jesus accomplished for Chris- 
tianity when He asked His disciples, "Whom 
say ye that I am?" and in answer to the ques- 
tion declared His purpose to build His Church, 
in other words, to base His religion, on the 
truth thus confessed concerning His own per- 
sonality. This at once places the religion of 
Jesus in the realm of things knowable, and 
shows the injustice of Mr. lycwes in dismissing 
religion from the realm of verifiable knowledge, 
because, as quoted above, *'It confesses its 
inability to furnish knowledge with any avail- 
able data." It makes no such confession. 
"Jesus furnished His followers with the most 



*"The Fact of Christ," page 22. Since beginning this work, 
our attention has been called to this work of P. Carnegie Simpson, 
M. A., Minister of Renfleld, Glasgow. The work follows very- 
much the same line of thought which we had mapped out, except 
that while it begins with the fact of Christ we have begun with the 
fact of human nature, in order to reach an indisputable basis. 
We shall have occasion to refer to this work frequently, perhaps, 
in future chapters. 

47 



Helps to Faith 

patent and accessible of data — the person stand* 
ing before them. The data of His religion 
were and are a positive fact. What are the 
data? Unverifiable sentiments or ideas in the 
inscrutable region of faith? Not so. *Whom 
say ye that I am?' 'What think ye of Christ?' 
*I am the truth.' *Come unto Me.' Here are 
the data of Christianity. They are in an his- 
torical person, a fact as available as any other 
fact. Jesus drove agnosticism into the open 
when He declared that the data of religion are 
in the fact of Christ."* This is in entire har- 
mony with the method of Jesus throughout the 
four gospels, and it is absolutely unique. No 
other religious teacher ever emphasized his 
own personality above the truths he declared, 
and made man's destiny to turn upon their 
attitude to himself, rather than upon the doc- 
trine which he taught. How are we to account 
for this unique fact, that the meekest man of 
all history should have made His whole religion 
turn upon the truth concerning Himself rather 
than upon the abstract truthfulness of the mes- 
sage He conveyed? 

The fact is very readily explained on the 
hypothesis already mentioned, that God in the 

*"The Fact of Christ," p. 23. 

48 



Jesus as a Revelation of God 

process of His self-disclosure found it necessary 
to reveal His character and purpose to men 
through a perfect personality. If Jesus be that 
personality, and if He came to be a revealer of 
God and of true religion to men, would it not 
follow that His first and chief concern would be 
to establish Himself in the confidence of men 
as the accredited messenger of God, even the 
Son of God, who was authorized to speak for 
God on the most vital concerns of human life? 
This fact once established. His claim once 
accredited. His divine mission understood and 
accepted, the way is then open for Him to ful- 
fill His mission as the Teacher and Savior of 
mankind. This unique method of Jesus, there- 
fore, finds its only explanation in His unique 
personality, as the Son of God, and in His 
unique mission as the revealer of God to men. 
It explains, too, how that Jesus, the anointed 
of God, is Himself the object of Christian faith, 
since believing on Him we accept as truth all 
His teaching. 

It would seem to follow, then, according to 
this method of Jesus, who made the great ques- 
tion of His religion, not *'What think ye of 
God?" or ^'What think ye of the Ten Com- 
mandments?" but ^'What think ye of Christ?" 

(4) 49 



Helps to Faith 

that, from this one supreme fact may be de- 
duced the whole Christian religion. The 
phrase, *'0n this rock I will build My Church,'* 
cannot mean less than this. If this be a true 
inference, then the most prevailing form of 
modern skepticism, namely agnosticism, is 
without foundation, unless it can be shown that 
the phenomenon of Jesus throws no light upon 
the character and will of God, and furnishes no 
data which bring religion within the sphere of 
verifiable knowledge. It is the clear implica- 
tion of Jesus's teaching concerning Himself, 
that the fact which His personality and char- 
acter present to man, furnishes the data for 
learning of God and of true religion. In our 
further study of this fact, we shall have occasion 
to see both the truth of this implication and the 
wisdom of His unique method in presenting 
His own personality as the crucial point in 
religion. 



50 



V 

GIVEN CHRIST, CHRISTIANITY 
FOI.I.OWS 

This, we found, was the necessary implica- 
tion from the statement of Jesus to His disciples 
on the coast of Caesarea Philippi. He declared 
his purpose to build His Church, which cannot 
mean less than to found his religion, on the 
fact of His unique personality. The question 
we are now led to consider, is. How does the 
fact of Jesus yield us the data for Christianity? 
This will depend very largely upon what we 
understand to be involved in the fact of Christ. 
To that we must first give attention. 

That Jesus was the greatest man of all history 
is universally admitted among thinking men. 
The truth is, it seems to offend our sense of 
propriety to compare Him with other men. As 
a recent writer has said, ^'Talk about Alexan- 
der the Great and Charles the Great and Napo- 
leon the Great, if you will. Jesus was . . . 
incomparably greater than any of these; yet, 
who would speak of Jesus the Great? Jesus is 
apart. He is not the Great, He is the Only. 
He is simply Jesus. Nothing could add to 

51 



Helps to Faith 

that.'** If greatness be measured by the 
influence one exerts, or by the power to achieve 
great things, then who among the sons of men 
will compare with Jesus? Mr. I<ecky, in his 
** History of European Morals," declares that 
the ^ 'three short years" of the ministry of Jesus 
have *'done more to regenerate and to soften 
mankind than all the disquisitions of philos- 
ophers and all the exhortations of moralists." 
No one competent to judge will call this an 
extravagant statement, and yet it puts Jesus, 
who is called Christ, in a class by Himself. 

When we come to look closely into the char- 
acter of Jesus, to find out the elements of His 
greatness, we are struck at once with His 
intellectual superiority. He discussed con- 
tinually, with friends and foes, the deepest 
problems connected with human life and 
destiny. He taught men concerning God and 
the nature of religion, and the obligations 
growing out of our human relationships. He 
was continually beset by those who were 
anxious to betray Him into some rash utterance 
or unwise declaration of principle or of policy. 
But His wisdom was a constant surprise alike 



*"The Fact of Christ," p. 44. We are indebted to this work for 
several suggestions in this article. 

52 



Given Christ, Christianity Follows 

to His enemies and His friends. Officers who 
were sent to arrest Him came back and re- 
ported, *' Never man spake like this man.'* 
Saddncees, Pharisees, Herodians, Jewish rabbis 
and learned lawyers, all were silenced by His 
answers to their questions. This, in itself, was 
remarkable, but when we add to it the truth 
that nineteen centuries of the world's progress 
has not impeached His wisdom, or disclosed 
any fault in His teaching, the fact becomes 
marvelous indeed. There is not the slightest 
indication that the world will ever outgrow the 
sublime teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, 
or any other part of His doctrine relating to 
man's duties to God and to his fellowmen. 
Think of the significance of that fact — Jesus 
the infallible Teacher in the realm of religion 
and morals. 

But let us put alongside the intellectual 
superiority of Jesus His moral perfection — His 
sinlessness. One who heard all the accusations 
which His enemies could bring against Him 
before his tribunal, said, ''I find no fault in 
Him." This is the verdict of His own time 
and of all subsequent ages. His challenge to 
His enemies, *'Who of you convicteth Me of 
sin?" still remains unanswered. All the light 

53 



Helps to Faith 

which has been gathered from the progress in 
human morals has been turned on His life and 
character to discover in it, if possible, some 
flaw, but without success. He remains the 
solitary exception among all the millions of our 
race in this respect. The best men of the 
world have most realized their moral imperfec- 
tions, but Jesus never betrayed the slightest 
consciousness of His own sin or shortcoming. 
His moral experience was unique. He main- 
tained throughout His life a perfect conscious- 
ness of oneness with the Father. Possessing 
the keenest insight into the motives of the 
heart. He was yet free from any consciousness 
of guilt. He emphasized the duty of repent- 
ance on the part of all men, yet He never re- 
pented. It is this supreme fact in the life of 
Jesus that makes men stand in awe of Him and 
kneel before Him in worship. No wonder 
Charles L^amb once said to a company of friends, 
*'If Shakespeare were to come into this room 
we should all rise up to meet him, but if that 
person [referring to Christ] was to come into 
it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the 
hem of His garment." 

Not only is it true that Jesus was pure and 
sinless, but He offered Himself to men as one 

54 



Given Christ, Christianity Follows 

whose mission it was to supply all their needs. 
Sinless Himself, He invited all sinners to come 
to Him for pardon. Such passages as, "If any 
man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink;'' 
"I am the bread of life;" "I am the vine, ye 
are the branches;" "Come unto Me, all ye that 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," 
show that He regarded Himself as the supplier 
of others' needs. "They reveal one who not 
only is Himself without moral distress, but can 
aid all distress. Others are lost sheep; He is 
not only not lost, but is the shepherd. Others 
are sick; He is not only in health, but is the 
physician. Others' lives are forfeit; His is not 
only His own, but is the ransom. Others — all 
others — are sinners; He not only is not a sinner, 
but is a Savior."* Consider the infinite great- 
ness of soul and the infinite compassion of 
heart, which would lead one to open wide His 
arms for all the sorrowful, sinful, broken- 
hearted, defeated and weary ones of earth, and 
invite them to come to Him for comfort, for 
cleansing, for victory and for rest. Think of 
the meaning of this stupendous fact in its bear- 
ing on the fact of Christ and of His religion. 
I^et it be understood, too, that these significant 

*The Fact of Christ, p. 46. 

55 



Helps to Faith 

facts whicli we have stated '^are not exagger- 
ated dogmas of orthodoxy. They are conclu- 
sions of the most modern criticism." 

If anything needs to be added to the facts 
already mentioned concerning Christ to show 
that His unique personality contains within it 
the essential data of Christianity, it is this- — 
that He claimed to be the Son of God, the 
Savior of sinners, the Christ foretold by proph- 
ecy, the Founder of a universal religion, the 
King of the kingdom of God, and the future 
Judge of all men. The meekest of all men, 
and clothed with humility as with a garment, 
He yet claimed that all authority both in heaven 
and in earth had been given unto Him, and 
that the salvation of men depended upon their 
attitude toward Him. 

That He wrought many mighty works, 
attesting His divine power and mission, was 
admitted even by His enemies during His 
earthly ministry. But passing that fact by, let 
us approach at once the supreme fact, that, 
having been put to death by His enemies He 
appeared again to His disciples on the third 
day after His burial, and made Himself known 
to them during a period of forty days by many 
* 'infallible proofs." No student of the life of 

56 



Given Christ, Christianity Follows 

Jesus, to-day, seriously questions the fact of 
His resurrection. Not only have we the testi- 
mony of His disciples to the fact, who sealed 
their testimony with their blood, but we have, 
what is even more convincing, the establish- 
ment of His Church immediately following His 
resurrection, and its marvelous triumphs among 
the people of that generation and in subsequent 
ages. No one has ever offered any possible 
explanation of the rise and progress of Chris- 
tianity without the fact of the resurrection of 
Jesus and the living Christ. Given that fact, not 
only is Christianity accounted for but human 
history, since that date, becomes intelligible, 
and without it would be an enigma. 

What, then, have we found to be involved in 
the fact of Christ? A sublime personality, 
who, in intellectual power and in His moral 
perfection, stands alone and admits of no classi- 
fication with other men. We have found One 
who is not only sinless Himself, but who 
claimed to be the Savior of sinners; who was 
not only complete within Himself, but who 
proposed to make whole the sin-wounded and 
maimed ones of earth, to comfort all the sorrow- 
ful, to heal the broken-hearted, and give rest to 

all the weary. This unique Person claimed to 

57 



Helps to Faith 

be the Son of God, to hold the sovereign power 
over men's destiny, and, having been pnt to 
death, He rose again from the dead in proof of 
these marvelons claims. What shall an honest 
soul, standing in front of these great facts, do 
with them, and what can he learn from them? 
These are questions with which we have yet to 
deal. 



58 



VI 
WHAT THEN SHAI^Iv I DO WITH JESUS? 

In closing the preceding chapter we raised 
two questions: What shall the honest soul, 
standing in front of these great facts concerning 
Christ, do with them? And, What can he 
learn from them? I^et us deal with the first of 
these questions in this chapter. In the last 
analysis the question, What shall we do with 
the facts about Jesus? means, What shall we do 
with Jesus Himself who is called Christ? The 
inquiry may well assume the form of Pilate's 
question, and charged with vastly more mean- 
ing than the Roman governor put into it. In 
this personal form we are at last compelled to 
deal with the question. 

It is impossible for any thoughtful, honest 
person to stop his investigations concerning 
Jesus with the ascertainment of the facts which 
we have already mentioned. He must, if he be 
true to his higher nature and true to the logic 
of these facts, inquire, what about them? To 
what conclusion do they lead, as respects Jesus 
Himself, and as respects the soul's relation to 

59 



Helps to Faith 

Him? Do the facts permit us to conclude that 
this unique personality whose character is all 
that we can conceive God's character to be, 
whose power to redeem the world from sin is all 
that we can conceive God's power to be, whose 
claims on the faith and obedience of men are all 
that God's claims could possibly be, and whose 
offer of salvation to all the sinful and sorrowing 
ones of earth is as large and generous as God's 
offer could be, is anything less than deity Him- 
self? If so, then we have this strange anomaly, 
that the very being whose life and character 
and power to save have given us our highest 
conception of God, is Himself unworthy of 
that name and rank! This is a logical cul de 
sac in which no clear thinker will allow himself 
to be caught. He must either explain to him- 
self how these facts admit of a different inter- 
pretation than that we have suggested, namely, 
that in Jesus the Christ, we have the divine 
incarnation, or else he must bow before Him, 
and ask, as did the stricken persecutor of old, 
*'IyOrd, what wilt Thou have me to do?" 

The former course, we have already tried to 
show, is clearly impossible. The undisputed 
facts in the history and character of Jesus, 
admit of no such explanation. A sinless being, 

60 



What then Shall I Do with Jesus? 

living in conscious oneness with the Father, 
manifesting the attributes and claiming the 
prerogatives of Godhood, subordinating the 
laws of nature to His will, and triumphing 
over death, establishing a kingdom, which is 
triumphing over all other kingdoms, and 
marching down the centuries at the head of an 
increasing and conquering host, lifting empires 
off their hinges with His wounded hands, and 
guiding the course of human history, is not to 
be classed with men. He meets all our highest 
and worthiest conceptions of Godhood. The 
banks of the stream of ecclesiastical history for 
nineteen centuries are lined with the debris of 
broken, exploded and outgrown theories of 
Christology, which have tried to account for the 
divine Man of Nazareth on rationalistic prin- 
ciples. The very men who have framed these 
systems or theories have cast them aside as 
worthless. The supreme majesty and divine 
benignity of the face of the Galilean Prophet, 
as it is seen more clearly through the per- 
spective of history and through the parting and 
vanishing mists of ecclesiastical tradition, are 
Tendering obsolete these inadequate theories, 
and silencing the noisy tongues of glib and 
superficial infidel lecturers. Ingersoll and 

61 



Helps to Faith 

Bradlaugh have no successors. Martineau and 
Channing, men of pious hearts and of eminent 
ability, were representatives of a type of a 
Unitarianism that is almost extinct. Every 
religious system that loses its grip on a divine 
Christ, soon loses its grip on humanity. It is 
the uplifted Christ, pouring out His sinless life 
for a sinful world, that is drawing all men unto 
Him. 

Then we must come back to the other 
alternative. We must bow low before Him 
who claimed that "all men should honor the 
Son, even as they honor the Father," and 
offer Him the homage of our souls, and put our- 
selves under His direction as Savior and I^ord. 
But no self-respecting man can do this to a 
man, not even to a, £-ood inan. The very law of 
God forbids that he should do it. He who calls 
Jesus Lord, must go farther and say with 
Thomas, "my Lord and my God!" We need 
not greatly trouble ourselves if we are unable to 
accept any of the formulations of the trinitarian 
doctrine, or if we are unable to formulate a 
statement of the New Testament doctrine of the 
relations of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for our- 
selves. There is no harm in our attempting to do 
so, if we do not seek to impose it on others, 

62 



What then Shall I Do with Jesus? 

and it may serve to clarify our thinking. But 
no such requirement is made a condition of our 
salvation. What is required of us is that we 
accept Jesus in the capacity in which He offers 
Himself to men as the Christ, the Son of the 
living God, who only can reveal the Father, 
and who alone can save men from their sins, 
and from the power of death. This is the 
essential content of Christian faith. To 
establish His claims upon the faith and 
obedience of men, the four gospels were written. 
To this conclusion, then, are we brought by 
the facts of the gospel and by the events of 
Christian history. 

May we, then, stop here by giving our 
adhesion to this New Testament creed, and 
feel that we have met the demands which these 
facts make upon us? Not so. *'Why call ye 
me Lord and do not the things I command 
you?'' No man can come into touch with 
Jesus Christ, through faith in Him, without 
feeling the pressure of moral obligation to obey 
His teaching and conform His life, as far as 
possible, to the divine ideal which is presented 
in Him. We may admire and even love other 
men, and go on living pretty much the same 
old life. But not so with Jesus Christ. He 

63 



Helps to Faith 

raises moral issues with all those who come to 
know Him. His purity rebukes our impurity; 
His lofty ideals of life and duty impeach our 
low ideals; His oneness with God makes our 
separation from Him more apparent; His 
unselfish life reproves and condemns our self- 
centered lives; His love for us, even while we 
were yet sinners, softens and subdues our hearts; 
His grace invites us; His beauty of character 
charms us; His majesty awes us; His authority 
commands us. What shall we do with Jesus? 
There is but one thing we can do, without 
doing violence to reason, to conscience and to 
faith. We must say: *'This is He of whom 
Moses and the prophets spoke. This is He for 
whom my religious instincts have cried out in 
their hunger for a satisfying knowledge of God 
and of duty. He is I^ord of my conscience and 
my life. He meets the profoundest needs of my 
soul. He is the Savior I need, the I^ord whom 
I must obey." Or, in the words of ^'the 
disciple whom Jesus loved," we are led to 
exclaim: *'This is the true God, and eternal 
life." 

If one fails to reach this solution of the 
question, *'What shall I do with Jesus?" it is 
because he turns away from following the logic 

64 



What then Shall I Do with Jesus? 

of the facts conceruing Him, and refuses to be 
guided into the kind of life which He requires 
of men. Thousands do this, refusing to follow 
the plain leading of undisputed facts, and 
shutting their eyes to the conclusions to which 
these facts point, because they prefer darkness 
to light. Many of these then call themselves 
agnostics, claiming that there is no certain 
knowledge about God and eternal life! If Jesus 
had not come into the world these men might 
have had a cloak for their sins, but seeing they 
have closed their eyes, their ears and their 
minds to the knowledge which Jesus Christ 
came to impart concerning God and human 
duty and destiny, their condemnation will be 
all the greater. Christ came a light into the 
world that whosoever believeth on Him might 
not abide in darkness, but have the light of 
life. But if men will not walk in the light as 
it shines on their pathway in the face of Jesus 
Christ, then the light that is in them becomes 
darkness. And how great is that darkness! 
There .is no increasing light for him who re- 
fuses to walk in the light that he has. There 
is no infidelity so common and so fatal in its 
moral results as disbelief in, and disloyalty 
to, the light which God has given us. Blessed 

(5) 65 



Helps to Faith 

are they who open their eyes to this light 
and walk in it, for these are they whose path 
shall grow brighter, even unto the perfect day. 



66 



VII 
I^EARNING OF JESUS 

The facts in the life and character of Jesus, 
culminating in His resurrection from the dead, 
and His influence upon subsequent history and 
upon the whole collective life of man, have led 
us to accept Him as the Son of God, as the 
incarnation of deity and as the supreme Teacher 
and only Savior of men. We have found that 
we could do nothing else with Jesus consistent 
with reason or faith. I^et us, therefore, take 
our place humbly at His feet, as He has invited 
us to do, to learn of Him. 

Chief among the great lessons which Jesus 
came to teach the world is the Fatherhood of 
God. *'No one," said he, ''knoweth the Son 
save the Father; neither doth any know the 
Father save the Son, and He to whomsoever 
the Son willeth to reveal Him."* This state- 
ment just precedes His gracious invitation to all 
that labor and are heavy laden to come unto 
Him for rest and to take His yoke upon them 
and learn of Him. We may be sure, therefore, 



*Matt. 11:27, 

67 



Helps to Faith 

that one of the great lessons He was thinking 
of teaching them in order to give them rest was 
God's Fatherhood. What else, indeed, could 
bring so much solace and strength to the weary 
and sin-burdened souls of men as the knowledge 
that God, the Maker of all worlds, enthroned in 
glory and power, is their Father? This was a 
conception of Jehovah that had not entered into 
the heart of the common people. They had 
thought of Him as a being of might and majes- 
ty, terrible in judgment and capable at times of 
extending mercy to those who had offended 
against His law; but that He was a father 
possessing a father's heart, and ready to grant 
forgiveness to His children and reinstatement 
in His favor on evidence of true repentance, 
and this without respect of persons, was a con- 
ception they had not reached. 

It would be impossible to exaggerate the 
value of this great truth which Jesus revealed 
to men, and made real to them not by His 
teaching alone, but by His life and character. 
*'He that hath seen me," said He to Philip, 
**hath seen the Father."* This in response to 
Philip's plea, ^'lyord, show us the Father, and 
it sufficeth us!" Was not this cry of Philip an 

*John 14:9. 

68 



Learning of Jesus 

expression of the universal desire of tlie human 
heart, burdened with its sense of guilt and per- 
plexed with the mighty problems of the present 
and of the future? If you know Me, said Jesus, 
you know the Father. He and I are one, 
having the same nature and the same character. 
Every deed of mercy, every miracle to relieve 
human pain and suffering, every word of for- 
giveness and love, every effort of my life to 
draw men away from the seductive paths of 
evil to follow after righteousness, is but an 
expression of God's father-heart going out in 
infinite yearning for the salvation of men. 

This was a part of the message which God 
had to deliver to men which could not be con- 
veyed through prophet or seer. Only the Son 
could reveal it, and He only through becoming 
incarnate, illustrating the Father's disposition 
toward men by His own character and tender 
ministries. *'In Him was life and the life was 
the light of men."* And nothing but the life 
would have been an adequate light on this great 
problem of God's Fatherhood. Only the divine 
life, lived under human conditions, could reveal 
to men its true character and purpose. As 
stated in a previous chapter concerning the 

*John 1:4. 

69 



Helps to Faith 

revelation of God's love, whicli is closely akin 
to, and a necessary corollary of, His Father- 
liood, herein lies the necessity for the incarna- 
tion, and this necessity furnishes the strongest 
antecedent probability of its reality and reason- 
ableness. If God's true relation to men is that 
of Father, and if His real character is best 
expressed by the name love, and if these truths 
could be conveyed to mankind in no other way 
so truly and effectively as through the incarna- 
tion, then how could we vindicate God's char- 
acter for wisdom and goodness without the fact 
of the incarnation? 

We have now reached a point at which it is 
easy to understand why Jesus laid the supreme 
emphasis upon the question, *'Whom say ye 
that I am?" It Vv^as only as the Son of God 
that He could reveal the Fatherhood of God. 
Everything, therefore, hinged upon His person- 
ality—His divine and unique Sonship. Hence 
He declared, "On this rock I will build my 
church." Out of this rock, smitten with the 
hammer of right reason and of honest, inquir- 
ing faith, flows the whole stream of Christianity 
which has proven to be the water of life to the 
nations. How many fountains of truth, clear, 
sparkling and life-giving, take their rise from 

70 



Learning of Jesus 

this foundation truth! We have seen that 
God's Fatherhood is one of these fountains, and 
that it is a prolific mother of streams which 
have blessed the race and enriched the faith of 
men. I^et us note two of these: 

Not only is it true that the incarnation was 
essential in order to make real to men the 
Fatherhood of God, but it is also true that on 
the other hand the Fatherhood of God furnishes 
the motive for the incarnation. It has long 
been a stumbling-block to many people that 
God, who is the Maker of all worlds, should 
manifest Himself in human form on the earth, 
which is but a speck, as it were, in the vast 
infinity of worlds. Mr. Spencer has stated this 
objection to the incarnation in his own char- 
acteristic way, asking if we can believe that 
**the Cause to which we can put no limits in 
space or time and of which our entire solar 
system is a relatively infinitesimal product, 
took the disguise of a man?" A sufficient 
reply to this objection is that given by the 
author of "The Fact of Christ," who, quoting 
this language of Mr. Spencer, adds, **He may 
think he is giving us an imposing conception 
of God; but no conception of God is less impos- 
ing than that which represents Him as a kind 

71 



Helps to Faith 

of millionaire in worlds, so materialized by the 
immensity of His possessions as to have lost the 
sense of the incalculably greater worth of the 
spiritual interests of even the smallest part of 
them.''* This is finely and truly said. What 
a false conception of God that is which repre- 
sents Him as so concerned with His infinitude 
of revolving worlds that He would not think it 
worth while to stoop down to one of the smaller 
planets like the earth to redeem a fallen race! 

The absurdity of this view is magnified when 
we remember that these fallen men and women 
are God's children. What earthly father is 
there worthy of the name, who, if he owned 
the whole earth by a title deed, would not will- 
ingly surrender it to save even one of his own 
children? No one thought it strange that the 
father of Charley Ross spent his fortune and his 
life in traveling over the world in search of his 
lost boy. It was just what we would expect a 
true father to do. Is God so much less com- 
passionate than man that He would permit 
millions upon millions of His children, wearing 
His own image, to sink into the irretrievable 
depths of sin and moral degradation without 
putting forth the highest possible effort to save 

*The Fact of Christ, pp. 135-36. 

72 



Learning of Jesus 

them because they happened to live in one of 
the smaller worlds in His great universe? The 
whole conception is grossly materialistic. Jesus 
taught that a human soul was worth infinitely 
more than the whole world. No one who has 
ever felt the parental impulse of love, and who 
has come to understand the Fatherhood of God, 
can remain without the knowledge of an 
adequate motive for the incarnation and for the 
cross. When we clearly grasp this fundamental 
conception of God's relation to humanity, the 
fact of the incarnation becomes at once reason- 
able and even necessary. 

Moreover, this truth of God's Fatherhood 
and its corollary, that man is a child of God, 
explains why God would deal with men by the 
method of the incarnation and the cross. Such 
a being, clothed with the sublime prerogative 
of choice, must be won by moral motives, by 
the power of love. Since the highest expression 
of divine love and therefore the highest possible 
moral power which God can exert, is brought 
to bear on men through the incarnation and 
crucifixion of Christ, ought we not to expect 
that this means would be used of God for the 
accomplishment of His purpose? The case 
may be stated thus: Man's character can only 

73 



Helps to Faith 

be transformed through moral and spiritual 
power; the highest expression of moral power is 
love, and the supreme manifestation of love is 
seen in the self-humiliation and suffering of 
Christ. But as it is God's purpose to effect the 
moral transformation of men, it follows that the 
incarnation and death of Christ are in the line 
of God's purpose, and are the most efficient 
means of accomplishing it. 

Other corollaries follow from this great truth 
of God's Fatherhood and love, revealed by 
Christ, but these will suffice to show the neces- 
sity which underlies the incarnation, and the 
supreme value of this first great lesson which 
we have learned by sitting at His feet. We 
must hear Him further. 



74 



VIII 

AT THE FEET OF JESUS 

Let us linger, a while yet, at tHe feet of 
Jesus, as the supreme Teacher of the world, to 
learn what He has to say to us further 
concerning the Father and concerning 
true religion. We have already learned 
from Him to call God ^'Our Father." This 
one sublime truth has modified all our concep- 
tions of religion, as we are coming to better 
understand its import, and is revolutionizing 
the theologies of past centuries. No doctrine of 
God that is inconsistent with His fatherhood 
can endure. No conception of religion which 
does not flow out of, and harmonize with, the 
doctrine of God's fatherhood can stand the test 
of time and criticism. In that most beautiful 
of the parables, the prodigal son, Jesus has 
shown us how God, as Father, feels toward His 
prodigal children, and how He will receive 
them when they turn away from their sins and 
seek his face. We have learned also from 
Jesus, as a corollary from His fatherhood, that 
love is the supreme motive of God in all His 

75 



Helps to Faith 

dealings with men. This one truth has over- 
thrown, forever, all those theories w^hich, in 
one form or another, conceived of God as being 
so angry at man for his sins, and so full of 
wrath, that it required nothing less than the 
death of His Son to appease His anger and 
reconcile Him to man. All these unworthy 
conceptions have gone down before a new 
realization of the truth contained in the state- 
ment that *'God so loved the world, that He 
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth on Him might not perish, but have 
everlasting life.'^ 

Jesus revealed another truth about God, 
which may also be regarded as a corollary from 
His fatherhood and love, namely. His provi- 
dential care for all the creatures of His hand, 
and especially for man, His child. It is often 
one of the most difficult things of faith to 
believe that the God of all worlds, and of all 
races and tribes of beings that inhabit these 
worlds, cares for us individually. One is apt 
to feel that his life is so small and insignificant 
a part of the great universe of life and being that 
God may overlook it. It is easy, comparatively, 
to believe in His general providential guidance of 
the race, under some general system of law, but 

76 



At the Feet of Jesus 

it is a severe test of our faith to believe that He 
has a plan for each individual life, and that He 
cares for and is deeply concerned about the 
welfare of each one of us. What did Jesus 
have to say about that? He taught that not 
even a sparrow falls to the ground unnoticed by 
Him, much less can the human soul, made in 
His image, struggle and suffer defeat and 
sorrow without His being concerned about it. 
He told His disciples that the very hairs of their 
heads were numbered by His heavenly Father, 
meaning that His divine care extended over all 
the minutiae of their lives. Are we in need of 
daily bread, of raiment, of the things necessary 
to our material comfort? Our Father knoweth 
that we have need of all these things. He has 
not left our material wants out of His plan and 
providence for us. We may be sure, therefore, 
that He has included the necessities of our 
higher nature in that gracious providence 
which encompasses all our lives. 

What greater comfort, what greater source of 
strength and of endurance can we have, in 
times of perplexity and of trouble, which come 
to us all, than the assurance that our Father in 
heaven has a plan for each of our individual 
lives; that He knows about the troubles that 

77 



Helps to Faith 

burden us and the difficulties that beset us; and 
that He will see to it that a way of escape is 
provided, and that these trials will be overruled 
for our good. *'Seek first the kingdom of God 
and His righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you."* This does not 
mean that we are first, in the order of time, to 
seek the kingdom of God, and then every other 
blessing will follow, but that we should daily 
and continually, in all our choices, place the 
kingdom of God above all material considera- 
tions and make everything else subordinate to 
that. To such an one, all these things — -the 
necessities of our material nature — will be 
added. Hence, there should be no anxious 
thought about what we shall eat, or what we 
shall drink, or wherewithal we shall be 
clothed. The God who feeds the sparrows, 
who paints the lilies of the field with a beauty 
that surpasses the royal robes of Solomon, will 
not fail to care for His children. Such is the 
teaching of Jesus, concerning the universal and 
special providence of God. 

The infinite value of the human soul is 
another of the lessons which Jesus taught us. 
**What doth it profit a man," He asked, "if he 



*Matt. 6:33, 

78 



At the Feet of Jesus 

shall gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul?"* The implication is that the man 
would be an infinite loser who should gain the 
whole world, with its wealth and with all its 
transient pleasure, honor and glory, and lose 
his real self, his higher and his enduring 
nature. He taught, too, that it was a matter 
oi little concern, relatively, what men should 
do to our bodies, indicating that the chief peril 
which we ought to fear is that which threatens 
the welfare of the soul. This is why he taught 
men to "seek first the kingdom of God and His 
righteousness." 

This is only giving chief consideration to 
that which is of chief value. No one can 
be said to be a learner of Jesus, who places the 
wants of the body above those of the soul 
and who imperils the welfare of the soul, 
in his greed for accumulating worldly pos- 
sessions. To one who prided himself that he 
had much goods laid up for many years and 
was wholly unconcerned about his spiritual 
condition, Jesus said, *'Thou fool, this night 
shall thy soul be required of thee, and then 
whose shall these things be?"t Throughout 
the entire teaching of Christ this note of 



*Matt. 16:26. fLuke 12:20. 

79 



Helps to Faith 

emphasis of the supreme value of the human 
soul above all material considerations, is con- 
stantly heard. This is in entire harmony with 
His view of man as a child of God and, there- 
fore, capable of development into the likeness of 
God. There is no greater obstacle to the 
progress of the kingdom of God and to the 
individual development of character, than the 
materialism which ignores this distinction 
which Jesus makes between the material and 
the spiritual, and the infinite superiority of the 
latter over the former. 

We can never appreciate the teaching of 
Jesus concerning life and death and the higher 
obligations of the kingdom of God until we can 
get His point of view touching the value of the 
human soul. Once we have gained this view 
of man and his worth, everything else in His 
teaching becomes comparatively easy. It ex- 
plains why He loved men and was willing to 
die for them. He saw in man what no other 
teacher of religion ever saw — the capabilities of 
infinite spiritual progress, and believed in the 
recoverability of man from the dominion of 
evil, as no one else ever believed in it. 
Nothing furnished a greater stumbling-block to 
the Pharisees and Scribes of His time than His 

80 



At the Feet of Jesus 

association witli publicans and sinners, whom 
they regarded as utterly unworthy of notice. 
But Jesus saw deeper into human nature and 
recognized possibilities of moral betterment 
which they could not see. 

This teaching of Jesus as to the supremacy of 
man's spiritual nature, helps us to understand his 
teaching about sin. He located it in the heart. 
Sin is not something external, consisting mere- 
ly in outward acts, but He traced its source 
back to the heart, the seat of the inner life, 
whence proceed all adulteries, murders and 
every evil deed. Here is where the teaching of 
Jesus went beyond and superseded that of the 
law. The Scribes and Pharisees of His time 
conceived of righteousness as consisting in ex- 
ternal acts of compliance with legal regulations, 
but Jesus taught that unless the righteousness 
of men exceeded that of the Scribes and 
Pharisees they could in no wise enter into the 
kingdom of God. This righteousness was to 
consist in purity of heart, in holy desires and 
aspirations, in right purposes and intentions. 
The beatitudes set forth His conception of what 
kind of a character he should possess who is to 
be a citizen of the kingdom of God. The poor 
in spirit, hungering and thirsting after 

(6) 81 



Helps to Faith 

righteousness, meek in disposition, pure in 
heart, makers of peace, and having the love 
which endures persecution and prays for one's 
enemies — these are they who are fit subjects of 
the spiritual reign of Christ. The opposites of 
these virtues were the sins which Jesus regarded 
as most perilous to the souls of men. Nothing 
is more characteristic of the religion of Jesus 
than its inwardness — its design and its power 
to purify the sources of man's thoughts, desires 
and actions. He rebuked the Pharisees for 
being so punctilious about what they should 
eat, lest they should be defiled, and so in- 
different about the condition of the heart out 
of which all real moral defilement proceedeth. 
*'Make the tree good and the fruit will be 
good," was His idea of the relation between 
character and life— between the inward nature 
and the outward conduct. In all our insistence 
on obedience to all God's requirements, we 
must never lose sight of this distinction, and of 
this essential relation between the inward pur- 
pose and the outward act. 

Having now studied in this chapter the 
lessons of Jesus concerning God's providential 
care, the supreme worth of the human soul, and 
the nature of sin as defiling the very fountains 

82 



At the Feet of Jesus 

of life, and the emphasis which Jesus placed on 
the necessity of inward purification, we may 
turn to study, under His guidance, the doctrine 
of the new spiritual creation in and through 
Him as the condition of realizing His ideals of 
character. 



83 



IX 

HOW THE IDBAI. IS MADE REAIv 

Jesus has not only shown us the Father, but 
He has also shown us man at his best — the 
ideal man. Not only by His teaching, as in 
the Sermon on the Mount, has He drawn the 
picture of the ideal character of a citizen of the 
kingdom of God, but especially in His life has 
He shown us that picture in vivid colors. A 
recent author of great spiritual insight names 
four controlling elements of Christ's character, 
namely, purity, love, forgiveness, humility.* 
These are said to be distinctive features of the 
character of Jesus, because no one, before or 
since, has ever exhibited these qualities to the 
same degree. He, of all the sons of men, pre- 
sented the spectacle of a sinless life. He gave 
to the word love a. new meaning — deeper, higher, 
wider than anything the world had any concep- 
tion of before Him. So prominent was His for- 
giving spirit that it is frequently spoken of, 
when seen in others, as the Christian spirit. It 
is everywhere the infallible mark of a generous 



*The Fact of Christ. 

84 



How the Ideal is Made Real 

nature imbued witli the divine spirit. Humil- 
ity, as one of the cardinal virtues, finds its 
highest illustration in the life of Jesus. Him- 
self lyord and Master of men, He yet deemed no 
service too lowly for Him to render in the 
interest of humanity. Worldly honors, place 
and power had no attractions for Him. He 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. 
The question then arises, why such a lofty 
ideal of character should have been held up 
before the world, if men are unable to realize it. 
This question might well have been asked, and 
its answer would have been exceedingly diffi- 
cult, if Jesus, in presenting such an ideal, had 
presented no way by which the ideal could be 
realized in human life and character. No one 
knew so well as He the limitations of our 
human nature under the dominion of evil as He 
found it and knew it. It was this fact of the 
inability of man unaided from above to realize 
the purpose for which he was created that made 
Christ's mission into the world a necessity. 
His life must become so incorporated in the 
life of humanity as to become available to all 
who might desire to appropriate it in their 
struggle to lift themselves above themselves 
into a higher order of life. His mission in life 

85 



Helps to Faith 

was to be, not simply a teacher, but a Savior, 
and even His teaching was but a part of His 
process of saving men. What was the other 
part of that process? 

It is a fact which all human experience and 
observation corroborate, that teaching alone is 
not an adequate remedy for the moral ills and 
imperfections of human life. While the teach- 
ing, if it be of a high and noble character, may 
present an ideal which creates a desire for its 
realization, there is lacking the power to make 
the ideal real. The light which Christ gave to 
men concerning God and concerning human 
nature as it is, and as it ought to be, was quite 
essential to man's salvation, but unless some 
means had been devised by which added 
strength could be given to the human soul, it 
could never escape the bondage to appetites 
and passions, in a word, to the lower nature. 
Hov/ is this strength to be secured? How is it 
imparted? Jesus teaches, and all history con- 
firms the teaching, that He is not only the 
ideal of human life, but the power by which 
that ideal is to be realized. It is this fact that 
makes Jesus infinitely more than a mere 
reformer, whose ideals must forever remain 
impracticable. He has within Himself the 

86 



How the Ideal is Made Real 

power to rehabilitate character, to bring the 
human spirit, to use His own impressive figure, 
into a new birth, in which it makes such con- 
nection with the spiritual forces that reside in 
Christ that it is enabled to overcome the solici- 
tations to evil, both from within and without, 
and to triumph in His name. 

It is not our purpose in this volume to deal 
with processes so much as with facts, and the 
great fact to which we now call attention is 
that Jesus Christ proposes and actually does 
create a new spirit within man, by purifying 
his heart and imparting new strength to the 
inward man, by which he is enabled to realize, 
progressively, the new ideal of life which is 
placed before him in Christ. In other words, 
He not only, by His teaching concerning God 
and by the loveliness of His own perfect life, 
creates a desire in men to live a truer and better 
life, but He furnishes the power by which that 
desire may be gratified, to those who put them- 
selves in proper relation to Him to enable 
them to receive such strength. What that 
relation is has already been indicated. Men 
must believe on Him as the son of God and as 
the Savior of man. This will cause them to 
open their minds and hearts toward Him, so 

87 



Helps to Faith 

that they may receive from Him the light and 
life and power they need to overcome their 
sins, and become free men in Him. As we 
have already seen, there is abundant foundation 
for such faith, in the facts of Christ's life, in 
His character and in His teaching, and espe- 
cially in the marvelous influence which that life 
has exerted and continues to exert over man- 
kind. 

Our point here is to show that the teaching 
of Christ and the provisions which He has made 
for human salvation, are adapted to human 
needs as we see them and know them to-day, 
and as they have ever been. If Christ had not 
offered to those who believe on Him new 
strength to overcome their evil habits, we could 
not but feel that, however beautiful may be the 
doctrine which He taught, the life which He 
lived is impracticable for us, and hence His 
religion is a practical failure. But since He 
adapts His religion to our actual needs and 
reaches down His omnipotent hand to the lowest 
depths of sin where man has fallen and offers to 
lift him out of his moral degradation, He has 
taken all excuse away from men. We need 
not live sinful and degraded lives now unless 
we really prefer to do so, and so long as that 

88 



How the Ideal is Made Real 

remains our choice there is no power in all the 
infinite resources of heaven to save us against 
our will. There is much, however, in Christ's 
gospel and in the winsomeness of His character, 
to cause men to choose righteousness rather than 
iniquity, and life rather than death; but there 
is nothing to force that will by sheer omnipo- 
tence into such a choice. Indeed, it may as 
well be stated here that unless there is a will- 
ingness to live the best life possible, and to 
pursue the noblest ideals, these arguments we 
have presented will be null and void. It is 
only the soul that is hungering and thirsting 
after righteousness, but has been confused in 
its search for a stable basis of faith by the 
clashing creeds and discordant notes of Chris^ 
tendom, that is likely to be helped to an endur- 
ing faith by the things we are saying. There 
is no logic or reason strong enough to convince 
an unwilling mind of the claims of Christ or of 
the truth of Christianity. 

If it be asked, how could Jesus Christ who 
lived nineteen centuries ago come into such 
personal contact with the human spirit to-day 
as to impart to it new ideals, new strength and 
all the spiritual graces which are needed to 
make man Christlike? the answer is in the 

89 



Helps to Faith 

words of Jesus, ''IvO, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world.'* This same 
promise is given to His disciples in another 
form, when He promised to send them * 'another 
comforter,'* the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of 
truth, who should abide with them forever. It 
is the marvel and the miracle of history which 
proves Jesus to be more than man, that after 
the lapse of nearly two millenniums His power 
and influence are increasingly potent in mold- 
ing the characters of men, of governments and 
of civilization. This promise of Jesus to be 
present with His disciples in the preaching of 
His gospel, throughout all the coming cen- 
turies, finds its repeated fulfillment in millions 
of personal experiences in which human souls 
have come into touch with the divine power, 
and have received strength to turn away from 
their sins and to live new lives of joy and of 
consecrated Christian service. Jesus Christ 
was never so much in the world which He has 
redeemed as He is to-day. At no time has it 
been easier for a human soul, burdened with its 
sense of guilt and longing for a purer and better 
life, to touch the hem of His garment and be 
healed. He has but to reach out his hand of 



90 



How the Ideal is Made Real 

faith to feel tlie pressure of tlie hand that was 
pierced for him. 

Jesus, then, is something more than a Re- 
vealer of God, and of the divine ideal of man- 
hood. He is the Regenerator of mankind. He 
is the power by which His own divine ideals 
are to be realized. Through Him, we too, can 
attain to purity, love, forgiveness, humility, 
and so come into the moral likeness of Him 
who is the noblest ideal of life, and who would 
have all men share in His glory and perfection. 
His method of accomplishing this end, and of 
providing for the remission of sins remains to 
be considered. 



91 



X 

THE MEANING OF CHRIST'S DEATH 

We have come now to the greatest tragedy 
of all history, and to the deepest problem of 
religion — the death of Christ and its relation to 
human salvation. Into this holy of holies no 
one should enter except in a spirit of profound 
humility and reverence. Moreover, our point 
of view should continually be kept in mind in 
all this discussion, as indicated by the title of 
this work. To present Christ's death in a way 
that will make it a help rather than a hindrance 
to faith, is our purpose. 

There can be no doubt that the death of 
Christ by crucifixion has been a stumbling- 
block, not to the Jews alone, but to many 
others. Even to-day the cross of Christ is an 
offence to many minds. With the fact of 
Christ's death itself, we need to deal only very 
briefly. It is enough, perhaps, to say that on 
Christ's side it was a voluntary laying down of 
His life for the world's redemption; while on 
the human side it was no less the carrying out 
of a wicked plot on the part of the Jewish 

92 



The Meaning of Christ's Death 

priesthood to put Jesus out of the way, as a 
disturber of their inherited religion, and a 
teacher of religious principles which would 
undermine their authority and make an end of 
that narrow particularism which had come to 
characterize the Jews of that time. It is 
important to understand that Christ's tragic 
death, at the hands of His enemies, was not an 
unforeseen incident. He Himself foreknew it, 
and as soon as He had brought the Twelve to 
an understanding of His true nature and mis- 
sion, as the Christ, the son of God, He imme- 
diately began to foretell His sufferings and 
death by the Jewish authorities. It was a part 
of the program that lay in the divine mind even 
before the creation of man. In the graphic 
language of scripture, Christ **stood as a lamb 
slain from before the foundation of the world." 
It was the most difficult task which Christ had 
to accomplish, in the training of His apostles, 
to make them understand that His death was 
an essential part of the plan by which His 
kingdom was to be established in the world. It 
was not until after His resurrection that they 
were enabled to see how His death, so far from 
being the destruction of all their fondest hopes 
and aspirations, was the very means by which 

93 



Helps to Faith 

they could be realized. In the light of the 
open sepulchre the dark sayings of Jesus before 
His death became luminous, and they under- 
stood then, as they could not before, **how that 
Christ must needs suffer and rise from the 
dead," in order to the fulfillment of His mission 
in the world. 

When we come to the problem of the mean- 
ing of Christ's death, we enter upon what has 
been a battlefield of religious thought through 
all the Christian centuries. But out of all this 
conflict of thought, in which many false 
theories of what has been called the atonement, 
have been overthrown or outgrown, there have 
come certain generally accepted conclusions as 
to the spiritual significance and value of Christ's 
sacrificial death. It would be presumption to 
suppose that human thought has yet exhausted 
the meaning of Christ's life and death. What 
we state here may be regarded simply as some 
of the conclusions which have been reached and 
generally accepted as touching the relation of 
Christ's death "to us men and our salvation." 

I^ooked at from the divine point of view, so 
far as we are able to understand it, the work 
which God desired to accomplish for humanity 
was, to win men from sin and from the love of 

94 



The Meaning of Christ's Death 

sin, to love and obedience to Himself, and to 
extend forgiveness for the sins of the past. In 
other words, man was alienated from God, and 
it was God's purpose to bring about a reconcil- 
iation between man and Himself. This is one 
of the great New Testament words that express 
the meaning of Christ's mission into the world. 
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto 
Himself, and the apostles received the recon- 
ciliation.* This was Christ's mission into the 
world. An important part of this work had 
been accomplished by His life and His teach- 
ing, but there remained something yet to make 
His work efficacious for human redemption. 
The highest proof of His love and the love of 
the Father was not yet given, as we have here- 
tofore stated, until He had laid down His life, 
"the just for the unjust, that He might bring 
us to God." This language of Peter states, in 
a comprehensive way, the purpose of that 
death. History shows that such has been the 
effect of Christ's death — the bringing of men to 



* "Employing the scriptural name that seems most exact, we 
call that which Christ has effected Reconciliation between God 
and Men. By this is meant, that the mission of Christ has been 
the means of bringing God and men into moral unity and prac- 
tical fellowship, and that the work of Christ in his mission, 
tended directly to this result."— Z>n W. N. Clarke. 

95 



Helps to Faith 

God. It is by bringing men to God, that the 
reconciliation must be effected, since man's sin 
had produced the alienation. It is not difficult 
to see how the death of Christ, as a voluntary 
act for our sakes, has this effect. It was at 
once the highest revelation of God's love for a 
sinful world, and of the awful nature of sin. If 
God so loves the world as to be willing to give 
His Son to die for its redemption from sin, and 
if sin be so heinous in its character, so malig- 
nant in its spirit, so terrible in its consequences, 
as to put to death the innocent and holy Son of 
God, and as to necessitate such a sacrifice on 
God's part for its expiation, what higher 
motive could be furnished to the human heart 
and mind to accept God's proffered love, and 
turn away from sin — that awful blot on the fair 
universe of God? The cross is divine love 
appealing to human love; it is the heart of God 
calling for a response from the human heart. 
And not in vain. *'We love God because He 
first loved us." And this love of God was 
manifested in ^'that while we were yet sinners 
Christ died for the ungodly." When God had 
given to humanity the vision of an ideal man- 
hood, of a pure and holy character, in Jesus 
Christ, and had unveiled, so to speak, His own 

96 



The Meaning of Christ's Death 

heart of infinite love in the sacrifice He had 
made in giving His only begotten Son to die for 
us, that He might win us back to Himself, He 
had furnished the highest possible motive and 
the strongest power possible for calling men to 
repentance and faith, and to newness of life. 
Only by moral and spiritual power can the 
moral and spiritual regeneration of man be 
effected. No higher moral power can be con- 
ceived than is furnished to us in the gospel — 
*'that Christ died for our sins according to the 
scriptures; and that He was buried, and that 
He hath been raised on the third day, accord- 
ing to the scriptures." 

But how about the past with its multiplied 
sins which have separated us from God? 
Through Christ, God pledges the forgiveness of 
our sins, so that they are * 'remembered against 
us no more forever.'' Christ's death stands 
vitally related to the fact of forgiveness. Jesus 
Himself declared that His death was *4n order 
to remission of sins." This was the apostolic 
interpretation of its meaning. The phrase, 
* 'remission of sins," we are to understand, not 
simply as forgiveness of sin's guilt, but as the 
putting away of the sins themselves, so that 
they shall appear no more in the lives of those 

(7) 97 



Helps to Faith 

from whom they have been sent away. He also 
expressed the meaning of His death as being 
'*a ransom for many.'' In this language men 
are conceived as being in bondage to sin, and 
His death as having the power to liberate them 
from this bondage and secure for them forgive- 
ness of sins. It is impossible not to see some 
connection between Christ's death and the 
animal sacrifices which had been so long in 
practice, not by God's people alone, but in some 
form or other by all ancient peoples. Even 
Mr. Harnack, whom many of us believe to be 
too much swayed by the rationalistic precon- 
ceptions so dominant in Germany, says in his 
most recent work: "No reflection of *the reason,' 
no deliberation of *the intelligence,' will ever 
be able to expunge from the moral ideas of 
mankind the conviction that injustice and sin 
deserve to be punished, and that everywhere 
that the just man suffers, an atonement is made 
which puts us to shame and purifies us. It is 
a conviction which is impenetrable, for it comes 
out of those depths in which we feel ourselves 
to be a unity, and out of the world which lies 
beyond the world of phenomena. Mocked and 
denied as though it had long perished, this 



98 



The Meaning of Christ's Death 

truth is indestructibly preserved in the moral 
experience of mankind."* 

In this need, lying in the depths of human 
nature, we have the explanation, on the human 
side, of those sacrifices and gifts which have 
been offered in the past for human sins as 
affording the means of approach to God. It is 
a significant fact, to which Mr. Harnack also 
calls attention, that the death of Christ put an 
end to these animal sacrifices. *'If there is one 
thing that is certain in the history of religion, 
it is that the death of Christ put an end to all 
blood-sacrifices." This would argue that the 
death of Christ met, in a deeper and more satis- 
factory way, that need of the human soul which 
was temporarily provided for in these sacrifices. 
*'By one offering He hath perfected forever 
them that are sanctified, "t 

We have come to see that Christ's death was 
not to appease the wrath of an angry God, nor 
to reconcile Him to the world. It is God's 
way of reconciling the world unto Himself. 
While answering to this fundamental need of 
human nature, above mentioned, Christ's death, 
revealing as it does God's love and man's 
demerit, serves to bring man to repentance and 

* "What is Christianity?" pp. 171, 172. fHeb. 10:14. 
LofC. 99 



Helps to Faith 

thus to God. It is the goodness of God that 
leads man to repentance. Forgiveness of sins 
is forever impossible in the absence of repent- 
ance, and the renewed spiritual life. It is 
plain, then, to see this vital relation between 
Christ's death and the forgiveness of sins. It 
would be rash to deny that there is any further 
meaning in Christ's death than the power it 
possesses to bring man to God in penitence and 
faith; but that much we are sure it does mean. 
That it has a far-reaching influence on the 
whole moral universe in relation to the problem 
of sin, and that in some way, perhaps, by its 
power to bring men to repentance and faith, it 
enabled *'God to be just while justifying him 
who is of the faith of Jesus,'' we cannot doubt. 
Enough for us, however, to know that God does 
offer, through the death of His Son, to renew a 
right spirit within us, to blot out all our past 
sins, and to strengthen us mightily by His 
Spirit within us, to live the ideal, that is, the 
Christian life. 



100 



XI 

THE NATURE OF FAITH AND ITS RE- 
IvATlON TO SAI^VATION 

We bave seen that the life of Christ, as the 
incarnation of God, culminating in His death 
for the remission of sins, is the basis upon 
which, and the motive by which, God would 
bring man into reconciliation with Himself and 
hence to salvation. It has been affirmed, also, 
that faith is the means, on the human side, by 
which Christ's life and death, and his resurrec- 
tion from the dead, are made available for 
human salvation. It will not be denied by any 
one that the New Testament repeatedly affirms 
this connection between faith and salvation, 
but there are those who feel that this is an 
arbitrary relation which does not commend 
itself to reason nor comport with what we 
know of the character of God. It is with the 
reasonableness of this requirement that we now 
purpose to deal. 

Perhaps, there is no subject connected with 
man's salvation about which there have been so 
many diverse and inadequate views as about 

101 



Helps to Faith 

faith. Without even referring to these theories 
let us state at once that the faith-faculty, or the 
power of belief, is inherent in human nature. 
If this were not so, Christianity certainly 
would not be adapted to man as he is. It 
is the power in man that perceives or 
apprehends spiritual truth. This is its first 
aspect. The gospel of Christ appeals to man's 
moral and spiritual nature. There is in man's 
nature that which responds to this appeal, and 
which gives it credence. This is the faith- 
faculty. It is open-mindedness and open- 
heartedness toward God. It is the light which 
is in every man, concerning which Jesus said 
that if it * 'become darkness, how great is that 
darkness!" It is the soul's vision of spiritual 
realities and its perception of spiritual values. 
Immorality or a life of gross materialism, may 
obscure this spiritual faculty, while purity 
of heart contributes to that faith which enables 
the soul to see God. 

What we have called the faith-faculty, that 
is, the power to believe, requires the essential 
facts of Christianity in order to become Chris- 
tian faith. But the faith which saves is no less 
dependent upon willingness of heart, upon the 
soul's hunger and thirst for truth and righteous- 

102 



The Nature of Faith 

ness. It is this spiritual hunger that is most 
responsive to truth as it is presented to the 
mind and heart. It is just here that man's re- 
sponsibility for his lack of faith comes in. He 
is not responsible, so long as there are no facts 
upon which to base a reasonable faith, but 
when such facts are presented in connection 
with truths which appeal directly to the 
divinest part of our nature, then not to give 
credence to such facts, and not to respond 
to such truths, is to reject the light and to pass 
under condemnation. What Jesus calls *'a 
good and honest heart" in the Parable of 
the Sower, always responds to the appeal of 
the gospel, according to the measure of light 
which it has. Here again is another source of 
stumbling and of doubt. People imagine that 
they can do nothing of a religious character 
until their faith has become sufficiently strong 
to accept and appropriate the whole of God's 
revelation. This is a mistake. As we have 
before intimated, the gospel comes to men 
where they are and it always finds men, no 
matter what their moral level may be, in some 
part of their nature. Bvery man believes some 
acts to be right and others to be wrong. Every 
one knows that a certain course of conduct 

103 



Helps to Faith 

meets with the approval of his conscience, 
or moral nature, while a different course of con- 
duct meets with its disapproval. I^et the soul 
that is in quest of faith, pursue the course, 
steadfastly, which his own conscience approves, 
and turn away from those things which it dis- 
approves, and each forward step taken in 
harmony with his highest conception of right 
and duty, will bring him an increased measure 
of faith. It is the refusal to act upon what we 
do believe that weakens faith and obscures the 
light that is within us. No one has a right 
to expect more light until he is true to the light 
which he has. 

In these facts, which we are sure will be 
found to be true to human nature and human 
experience, will be found the solution of that 
old-time problem concerning the relation of 
faith and repentance, as to which precedes the 
other. The answer depends, of course, on what 
we call faith. If we speak of Christian faith, 
that is, faith in Christ as the Son of God and 
the spiritual Savior of man, it is evident that 
there must be a turning away from sin which 
precedes such a faith. There is a belief in 
a supreme moral Governor of the universe and 
in the distinction between right and wrong, 

104 



The Nature of Faith 

whicli may be said to be practically universal. 
It exists among all nations, whether they 
have ever heard the gospel or not. When 
Christ came into the world, men, both Jews 
and Gentiles, were told to repent, in order that 
they might believe the gospel. Here was a 
repentance that precedes Christian faith, but it 
does not precede belief in the righteousness of 
certain things and in the unrighteousness of 
other things. Men were told that they must be 
true to the belief or the light which they had, 
in order that they might receive further light. 
We are now speaking of that aspect of faith 
which may be called moral vision, or the power 
that perceives or appropriates truth. There is 
another aspect of faith which is further on, and 
which consists of trust in a Person. This final 
and matured aspect of faith in which the soul 
commits itself to Jesus Christ, is not reached 
except by repentance. But that repentance 
which puts the soul in an attitude for com- 
mitting itself to Christ, is the product of 
the soul's perception of right and truth and 
duty, which may be called one degree or aspect 
of faith. 

In other words, faith and repentance do not 
express distinct and independent acts of the 

105 



Helps to Faith 

soul. They are so related and inter-related 
that you cannot draw a line between them and 
say, on that side is faith and on this side is re- 
pentance. It is always and foreverniore true 
that obedience to the right must be preceded by 
a conviction that it is right. It is also ever- 
more true that the turning away from sin must 
be preceded by the knowledge that it is sin. 
This is the truth that underlies the contention 
that faith precedes repentance. It is faith in 
its general sense as moral vision, or the moral 
perception of truth, that thus precedes the 
change of mind which is called repentance. 
But it is also true that no man living in known 
disobedience to moral law, can exercise faith in 
its highest function, that of trust in a personal 
Savior. This is the truth that underlies the 
position that repentance precedes faith. Both 
positions are true in their proper place, but 
neither by itself is the whole truth. The faith 
of the New Testament on which salvation 
is predicated, includes more than spiritual 
perception. It involves the affections of the 
heart, and the submission of the will. The 
faith that accepts Christ and His conception of 
righteousness discovers therein a deeper re- 
pentance than was possible in the absence of 

106 



The Nature of Faith 

such faith. The Pauline view that affirms 
justification by faith, has for its necessary corol- 
lary that repentance and obedience to Christ 
are aspects of faith, or the means by which 
faith manifests itself and secures its object. 

The relation, therefore, between faith and 
salvation, is not an arbitrary one, but causal 
and necessary. Faith is the channel through 
which God communicates with the soul, and 
introduces into it those regenerative truths and 
forces which are essential to its moral renova- 
tion. In other words, faith is that attitude of 
the soul toward God which enables it to accept 
of the offered salvation. To object to faith, 
therefore as a condition of salvation, is very 
irrational, seeing that it is in perfect harmony 
with the laws which govern human action, in 
every other department of life. Men plant and 
sow in faith, and all business intercourse 
between men, corporations and nations, is 
based on faith. Faith saves, because it links 
the soul in union with the Savior. The power 
that saves is in Christ. The hand that lays 
hold of that power is faith. The two or- 
dinances of the gospel, — baptism and the 
lyord's supper, — are helps to faith, being means 
by which faith may express its attitude toward 

107 



Helps to Faith 

Cbrist, who is the object of faith. If this 
truth were once recognized — that none of these 
conditions of salvation are arbitrary, as if God 
would fence in salvation and make it difficult 
for man to secure it, but are rather in the 
nature of steps by which the soul may ascend 
to the realization of salvation, — it would save 
us from many false and injurious conceptions 
which are contrary to the nature of God and of 
Christianity. 

Having now treated of the nature of faith 
and its relation to salvation, we may pause here 
before considering what are the things essen- 
tial to be believed in order to salvation. 



108 



XII 

WHAT MUST WB BEUEVE? 

The answers to this question, taken by cen- 
turies and shaped according to the dominant 
religious ideas of each century, would in 
itself constitute a most instructive history of 
religous thought. If this question were put to 
the whole religious world to-day a great variety 
of answers would be given. Indeed, is it not 
certain that preachers and theologues of the 
same religious body would differ materially 
in their answers to this question? Even those 
denominations which have authoritative creeds, 
which churches must endorse to be in good 
standing in their respective folds, do not claim 
that the belief of their creeds is essential to 
salvation, else they would consign to condem- 
nation all who reject such creeds, which they 
do not do. They all admit that one may have 
saving faith and be a Christian without believ- 
ing any one of these creeds. These human 
formulations of doctrine, then, do not answer the 
question. What must we believe in order to be a 
Christian? but they do answer the question as 

109 



Helps to Faith 

to what one must believe in order to be a 
member in good standing of the particular 
denomination which has authorized the creed. 

Here, then, we are enabled at once to answer 
a standing objection on the part of those who 
make these conflicting creeds an excuse for not 
accepting the Christian faith and life. Men 
say, *'How do I know what I must believe in 
order to be saved, when there are so many differ- 
ing creeds held by different Churches?" The 
answer to this objection is, that these creeds do 
not profess to tell inquiring sinners what they 
must believe in order to be Christians, but only 
to tell people what they must believe in order to 
be Episcopalians, Presbyterians, lyUtherans, 
Methodists, Universalists, Unitarians, etc. 
Since then, they do not claim to present the 
essential faith, and that alone, but a statement 
of doctrinal beliefs which the men making 
them thought necessary to guard the Church 
from doctrinal errors, their differences in the 
realm of speculative opinions and deductive 
reasoning ought to furnish no insuperable 
obstacle to one in quest of faith — the 
essential Christian faith. Many a man 
has been driven into skepticism and infidelity 
by the false idea that he must be able to accept 

110 



What Must We Believe? 

some one of these differing creeds in order to be 
a Christian and be saved. 

We turn, then, away from creeds to the 
Bible which all the creeds recognize as an 
inspired rule of faith and practice, and es- 
pecially to the New Testament, which contains 
the revelation through Christ, to inquire what 
is essential to Christian faith? One must be 
blind, indeed, not to see what the New Testa- 
ment regards as the faith that delivers one from 
the power of sin and makes one a Christian. 
It is faith in Jesus of Nazareth Himself as 
the Christ, the Son of God. It is not intel- 
lectual assent to certain doctrinal truths, but 
faith or trust in Jesus as a divine Person — as 
the Prophet to teach men true religion; as the 
high Priest who has made one offering for sin 
that suffices, the offering up of himself to God 
for humanity; as the King, who rules in the 
spiritual domain by right of His divine Sonship, 
and His pre-eminence in spiritual knowledge 
and power and the perfection of His character. 
*'He that believeth on the Son hath life,'* 
because *4n Him was life, and the life was the 
light of men." Jesus Himself presented this 
truth as the foundation of His Church, as we 
have previously shown, and His apostles never 

111 



Helps to Faith 

required any other confession of faith from 
men, in order to their admission into Christian 
congregations, than the confession of Christ. It 
is not, then, primarily. What must we believe? 
but, Whom must we believe? The whom 
decides the what. 

But are we not required to believe in faith, 
repentance, baptism, the lyord's supper, prayer, 
and a holy life? No, none of these things are 
objects of faith. They are commands to be 
obeyed, or duties to be performed, or privileges 
to be enjoyed, because we believe in Christ. 
We cannot substitute any one or all of them for 
Christ, as the object of faith, nor can we 
logically classify them along with Jesus Christ 
as constituting the object of faith. That would 
be to classify cause and effect together, and 
would not give Christ the pre-eminence that 
belongs to Him and which He claims. Not 
even the Scriptures are the object of Christian 
faith. The sacred writings are only the 
medium through which Christ is presented for 
our faith. They are invaluable in their testi- 
mony concerning Christ, but they are no substi- 
tute for Christ. To the Jews of His own time 
Jesus said, *^You search the scriptures, because 
ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and 

112 



What Must We Believe? 

these are they which bear witness of Me; and 
ye will not come to Me that ye may have life."* 
Eternal life is not in the Scriptures, but in the 
Christ of whom they testify. John was a 
witness of Christ, but he himself testified that 
he was not the Christ. The supreme value of 
the Scriptures consists in the fact that they 
contain the testimony of prophets and apostles 
concerning Jesus of Nazareth, that He is the 
Christ. * 'These things are written that ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, 
and that believing, ye might have life 
in His name."t The Bible contains much 
that is valuable in the way of history, ethi- 
cal teaching, devotional writings, literature; 
but that which gives it its supreme 
place in the world's literature, and makes 
it imperishable, is that it contains a picture 
of a Life and a Personality so august, so 
marvelously beautiful, so full of grace and 
truth, as to win the admiration and challenge 
the l^faith of mankind. Because it embodies 
such a lyife, as the supreme revelation of God, 
the Bible will continue to hold its place in the 
confidence and love of the world's best minds 
and purest hearts. 

* John 5 : 39, 40. f John 20 : 31. 

8 113 



Helps to Faith 

An inconceivable amount of injury has come 
to the church through its faihire to apprehend 
what is the object of the faith that saves, or to 
distinguish between what is vital and what 
is fundamental in Christian faith, and what is 
incidental or inferential. All attempts to 
enforce uniformity of theological beliefs 
through the creedal system have been based 
on this misconception of the real content of 
Christian faith.. It would be impossible to 
estimate how much infidelity has resulted from 
the indiscriminate mixing up of human philos- 
ophy with the divine revelation of God^s 
wisdom and love in Jesus Christ, so that many 
have been unable to distinguish the one from 
the other, and finding fault with the human 
and changeable element, have rejected the 
divine and unchangeable truth of God as well. 
How many have stumbled over the doctrine of 
the ''divine decrees,'' fixing unalterably the 
fate of men, which no choice or action on their 
part can change, as if they had to believe such 
a doctrine in order to be a Christian! How 
many theories of the atonement have been 
identified with the very fact of the atonement, 
and when they have become untenable because 
of increasing light, men have felt that they 

114 



What Must We Believe? 

were giving up the whole Bible and Christ 
Himself, in parting with their false theory! 
The same thing is true regarding theories 
of inspiration, of the operation of the Holy 
Spirit, of conversion, and of many other Bible 
facts. The divisions in the Church of God, 
which are contrary to the spirit and teaching of 
Jesus and to the plain teaching of the apostles, 
have resulted from the efforts to enforce human 
opinions and speculations as divine doctrines, 
and to make them tests of fellowship. If the 
Church had been content to maintain its 
original creed or confession of faith, which, as 
we have seen, was the Messiahship and deity of 
Jesus of Nazareth, allowing liberty of opinion 
in all matters not in conflict with this funda- 
mental faith, she could have retained her unity, 
conserved her resources for beneficent purposes, 
stopped the mouths of infidels, and the world, 
ere this, might have been brought under the 
reign of Christ. 

The effort to restore this original creed of 
Christianity to its rightful place in the Church, 
and to make the Christian faith once more per- 
sonal, instead of doctrinal, and thus to restore 
the lost unity among Christians, and the purity 
and simplicity of the gospel, which began 

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Helps to Faith 

in the early part of the past century, was the 
most important reformation in the church since 
the Lutheran reformation in the sixteenth 
century. Indeed, it was and is but the carry- 
ing out of the principles of that reformation to 
their legitimate conclusions. The marvelous 
success of that movement, in spite of the faults 
and mistakes of its advocates, is proof of the 
wonderful vitality of the principles involved. 
There has been a constant tendency, on the 
part of some minds, throughout its entire 
history, to revert to the old system of making 
opinions and theories tests of fellowship, and to 
substitute an unwritten for a written creed; but 
the broader element, representing the real 
genius of the movement, has always triumphed 
in the past, and will continue to triumph over 
all narrowing tendencies in the future, for 
it shares the indestructible and victorious 
character of the Christianity of Christ which it 
is seeking to restore to the world in the fullness 
of its original power. 



116 



XIII 
THK HOI.Y SPIRIT 

Wk have seen that God's purpose in sending 
His Son into the world was to bring men into 
a state of reconciliation with Himself wherein 
they would receive renewal of life and forgive- 
ness of sins. We have observed, too, how the 
character of this self-revelation of God, in 
Christ, is adapted to accomplish this purpose. 
We have also pointed out the nature of faith, 
its relation to the salvation that is offered 
through Christ, and the content of that faith. 
It remains to be shown how this life, which has 
its origin in the soul through faith in Jesus 
Christ, is carried on to completion so that faith 
is enlarged and confirmed, and the character of 
the believer is made to conform to that of 
Christ. 

This brings us to the treatment of another 

high and holy theme, namely, the mission and 

work of the Holy Spirit. We are dependent 

upon the Holy Scriptures, and especially upon 

the New Testament, for our knowledge of this 

difficult subject, yet Christian experience is an 

117 



Helps to Faith 

important source of confirmation of the truths 
taught in the Scriptures. The Bible clearly 
teaches the threefold manifestation of God in 
history. We have already spoken of God the 
Father, as revealed to humanity in Jesus Christ 
the Son. The New Testament is no less clear 
and emphatic in its teaching concerning the 
later manifestation of God in what is called the 
Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of truth. However 
men may differ as to the reality of the triune 
nature of God, that is, as to the trinitarian 
mode of His existence, there can be no doubt, 
whatever as to the trinity of God's manifesta- 
tions as recorded in the Bible. In speaking of 
the Holy Spirit, therefore, we are not to 
be understood as speaking of some impersonal 
influence, but of God Himself, working in man 
for man's salvation. The Holy Spirit is a 
personality, if God be a personality, for He is 
none other than God Himself, manifesting 
Himself as spirit to human spirits in order 
to complete the work for which He sent His 
Son into the world. If it be clear from the 
teaching of the New Testament that God's 
work in human salvation could not have been 
accomplished without the agency of the Son, it 
is no less clear that this work needed also the 

118 



The Holy Spirit 

agency of the Holy Spirit, who began His 
special work after Christ's ascension and glori- 
fication. 

The proof of what is here said is found in the 
language of Jesus Himself, uttered just prior to 
His passion, as recorded by John. He told His 
sorrowing disciples that it was expedient that 
He should go away, for unless He should go 
away the Spirit, the Paraclete or Helper, 
would not come. It is clear, then, that Jesus 
regarded the coming of the Holy Spirit, in new 
power and in new relation to humanity, as 
essential to the welfare of His disciples, and to 
the carrying on to completion of the work 
which He had begun during His personal min- 
istry. He tells us, also, what the nature of the 
work is, which the Holy Spirit will accomplish 
in the world and in His disciples when He 
comes. As to the world, He will convince it of 
sin, of righteousness and of judgment. That 
is, He will give to the world clear convictions 
as to the real nature of sin, as to the true char- 
acter of righteousness, its opposite, and of what 
God's judgment must be on the great moral 
issues involved in sin and righteousness. It is 
not said here how He will do that work, though 
it may be inferred from the fact that it could 

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Helps to Faith 

not begin until aftei His death, resurrection 
and coronation, that these great facts were to be 
used by the Holy Spirit in carrying out His 
mission. The history of the beginning of the 
Church, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, 
shows that this was the approved method of the 
Spirit in convicting men of sin, of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment, namely, through the 
preaching of the gospel. We need not, how- 
ever, make any restrictions as to the method of 
the free Spirit of God in bringing truth to bear 
upon the minds and hearts of men. Doubtless, 
this is done in ways that we know not of. But 
we are safe in following the practice of the 
Apostolic Church in preaching the gospel of 
Christ, and expecting the Holy Spirit to 
accomplish His work through this means, 
without neglecting, however, the influences 
which go forth from the Christian home, from 
the Sunday-school, and from all other agencies 
and instrumentalities for training the young for 
God. 

The Holy Spirit has a special work to do for 
Christians. He was to be to them **another 
Comforter,'' or better, perhaps, another Helper ^ 
who would strengthen them with all might, 
who would guide them into all necessary truth, 

120 



The Holy Spirit 

and wlio would, in a word, enable them to 
realize the character which it is the purpose of 
the gospel to form in all believers. We must 
not limit these promises of Christ, concerning 
the Holy Spirit, to the apostles or to the 
believers of that age, for He was to abide with 
them forever. The Holy Spirit is not less 
active in the Church to-day than it was in the 
days of the apostles. It does not follow that 
He will qualify men for the same work which 
was done in that age, and which does not need 
to be repeated, but He is none the less active 
and powerful in adapting the truth of the 
gospel to the varying needs of successive ages, 
and to the changes in the conditions of the world 
and of the Church. Nothing could be more 
inspiring than the recognition of the presence 
of the Holy Spirit in the Christian people of 
to-day, enabling them to cope with the prob- 
lems of the times, and to overcome the difficul- 
ties that hinder the progress of God's kingdom 
in the world. This is true of the Church as a 
whole, according to the measure of its willing- 
ness to be guided by the Spirit, and it is true of 
each individual believer, limited only by the 
same law. No doubt unbelief, worldliness and 
sectarian aims and ambitions have done much 

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Helps to Faith 

to hinder the work of the Holy Spirit; but 
there is always *'a remnant according to the 
election of grace," and through these elect souls 
God has shown forth, and is showing forth His 
truth, and leading the lagging Church onward 
toward the accomplishment of its great mission. 
What is here hinted at in regard to the 
growth of the individual believer in righteous- 
ness and toward perfection of character, is the 
New Testament doctrine of sanctification. It 
is the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer to 
carry forward, progressively, this work of God 
in the human soul, until it is transformed into 
the likeness of Christ. *'He makes Christ ever 
more truly known, taking what is His and 
manifesting it to the soul. He constantly calls 
out new faith in Christ, new love toward God 
and man, new hope of further blessing and 
progress. He brings home to the heart the 
truths that are helpful to the growth of holi- 
ness. He turns the various events of life to 
their sanctifying use, and teaches to the child 
the Father's lessons. He wakens the spirit 
of prayer in the heart, and suggests such 
desires as accord with the Father's will. He 
confirms and educates the Christian virtues, 
and extends the field of" goodness in the life. 

122 



The Holy Spirit 

He tenderly broods over the entire soul and its 
living, ministering silent but effective help to 
all that is holy. His invisible presence is 
sometimes unperceived, and His work, with its 
precious fruits, is attributed to natural causes, 
as if natural progress were enough to bring 
Christians to perfection. But the glory of the 
Christian life is the indwelling of the living 
God as a guiding and sanctifying Spirit. The 
inner Christian life is not merely human; it is 
divine, both in its origin and in the source 
from which it is perpetually maintained. The 
presence of the sanctifying Spirit is the Chris- 
tian's hope."* 

We are not to be discouraged, then, with 
either the weakness or crudeness of men's faith, 
if it be genuine faith in God, as revealed in 
Christ, and made real to men through the Holy 
Spirit. That only is real to us in religion 
which is made a part of our inner experience, 
and thereby ceases to be dependent wholly on 
external testimony. It is the mission of the 
Holy Spirit, as relates to the individual be- 
liever, to carry forward the work which has 
been begun in him until it reaches the divine 
goal. Without this aid of the Spirit — Christ's 

*Dr. Clarke's "Outline of Christian Theology," pp. 409, 410. 

123 



Helps to Faith 

representative — the future would not be full of 
inspiring hope as it is. We may be sure that 
out of all our weaknesses and crudeness of 
views, and all of our moral imperfections, God 
intends to bring, at last, if we are led by His 
Spirit, unity, completeness and fullness of life 
and love. 



124 



XIV 
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE, OR GOD IN US 

It is mucli to be feared that the abuse to 
which the phrase *' Christian experience" has 
been subjected, has caused many of us to over- 
look the value and significance of our individ- 
ual Christian experiences, as proof of the reality 
of God and of His life-giving power as mani- 
fested in Christ. A little reflection, however, 
ought to convince anyone that no amount of 
external testimony would suffice to overcome 
the power of unbelief and the tendency to evil 
within our human nature, without the present 
actual results of the power of Christ, felt and 
seen in our own lives and in the lives of those 
about us. It is worth while, therefore, to con- 
sider very carefully what is meant by Christian 
experience, and its evidential value as relates 
to the divine character and mission of Jesus 
Christ. 

The end and aim of Christ's mission, as we 
have seen, is the reproduction in men of the 
life that was in Him. He came, to use His 
own words, that men ''might have life and that 

125 



Helps to Faith 

they might have it more abundantly." This 
life, which of necessity must have its origin 
within the soul of man as an inner spiritual 
force, was to manifest itself in the new char- 
acter and conduct of those who possessed it, or 
rather were possessed by it. It was the Founder 
of Christianity Himself who taught that, as a 
tree is known by its fruits, so His religion in its 
relation to men was to be known by the kind 
of character and conduct it produced. In lay- 
ing down this rule He subjected His religion 
and His whole power as a Savior of men to the 
test which could be applied by all men. It 
was as if He had said, "There is no need that 
you should be in doubt as to My real character 
and mission. If belief in Me, as the Son of 
God, and obedience to My teaching, does not 
result in transformed lives and characters, 3^ou 
shall know by that fact that I am not of God. 
But on the contrary, if the result of faith in Me 
and acceptance of My teaching be the reception 
of new power by which the believer is enabled 
to live a new and better life, then by this sign 
you may know that God is in Me, reconciling 
the world unto Himself and communicating 
life to men." 

It is evident from this and similar teaching 

126 



Christian Experience, or God in Us 

of Jesus, that He expected that the moral and 
spiritual results of His teaching would be the 
final proof to men of its divine nature and 
authority. And why should it not be so? It is 
the rule that we apply in every other depart- 
ment of life. Who would believe in a physi- 
cian, no matter what his scientific attainments, 
nor how great his claims, if he effected no 
cures, and had no healed patients to testify to 
the efficacy of his treatment? Who would 
believe in the ability of a farmer, who, from 
year to year, failed to produce crops? How 
long would men commit their children to 
teachers who failed to educate? What ship- 
builder could command orders for building 
vessels who had never constructed one that was 
able to navigate the seas? So Christ and His 
religion would long since have been remanded 
to the dead issues of the past, if there had been 
no continuous stream of life flowing from them, 
purer, sweeter, diviner than the life of the 
world. It is not enough that Jesus Christ, 
nearly 2,000 years ago, in the land of Palestine, 
wrought many wonderful works and succeeded 
in transforming the lives of His immediate 
followers. What is He doing in the world 
to-day? His friends claim that He is risen 

127 



Helps to Faith 

from the dead, and is alive forever more. What 
are the proofs of His present power over the 
lives of men, and on the laws and institutions 
of the present age? These are questions the 
world will ask, and which it has the right to 
ask, and which Christians must not shrink from 
answering. 

What we mean, then, by Christian experience 
is the presence and power of the immanent God 
working in human lives to-day, and producing 
results which neither the world nor the things 
of the world can produce. What better proof 
than this can any soul have of the divinity of 
its religion? Is it not the neglect of this direct 
personal testimony of our own consciousness to 
the power of God, * 'working in us both to will 
and to do His good pleasure," that has given 
rise to so many fears and doubts as to the 
ability of Christianity and of the Bible to stand 
the test of modern evangelical or rationalistic 
criticism? Whoso lives in such personal rela- 
tions with God and has such daily proofs of His 
presence within him, strengthening him in all 
right-doing and reproving him for every slight- 
est departure from the right, cannot easily be 
alarmed as to the stability of the foundations of 
faith. It is not in the power of criticism, 

128 



Christian Experience, or God in Us 

higher or lower, destructive or constructive, to 
overthrow the testimony of the soul of the 
Christian man to the fact that, whereas he was 
once morally and spiritually blind, he now sees; 
and that whereas he was once a slave of sin, 
bound by invisible chains under the dominion 
of evil, he is now free; and that whereas he was 
once burdened with a sense of guilt which 
seemed to hide the face of God, he now rejoices 
in the knowledge of sins forgiven and in the 
consciousness of daily communion with his 
Heavenly Father. The times in which we 
live demand that we give more emphasis to 
this testimony that comes from within, but that 
manifests its reality in the outward life and 
conduct. 

We have spoken of Christian experience as 
the work of God in the human soul. It is, 
therefore, a part of that broader conception of 
God's immanence which is doing so much to 
shape anew all our modern thought. Concern- 
ing this conception a recent author of distinc- 
tion has said: *'This thought of the imma- 
nence of the transcendent God is a magnificent 
conception, that is destined powerfully to 
influence religion, theology, science and com- 
mon life. It is at once so vast and so new an 

9 129 



Helps to Faith 

idea as scarcely to have begun its work. If 
our own God thus pervades the universe with 
his presence, purpose, and action, then indeed 
*every place is hallowed ground.* Nothing is 
profane, all is sacred. The universe is sancti- 
fied by the presence of its God, and we have no 
right to think of nature or of life without the 
reverence for which His presence calls. Chris- 
tian thought will some day moie strongly 
grasp this splendid conception, that the God 
and Father of Christ, our Father who is in 
heaven, is present in His whole creation, 
providing it with power to exist and end to 
exist for. By this thought worthily grasped all 
life will be elevated and purified. Religion 
will be freshly inspired, theology will be trans- 
figured, and science will become a spiritual 
worship."* 

We are now concerned in this doctrine only 
as it relates to religious experience, and as a 
part of, and perhaps the best part of, the testi- 
mony to the reality of the Gospel as the power 
of God unto salvation, and of the continuous 
presence of God with men through all these 
Christian centuries. It is, in other words, the 
religious form, which the doctrine of the divine 



*"An Outline of Christian Theology," pp. 158, 159. 

130 



Christian Experience, or God in Us 

immanence assumes in the fulfillment of Christ's 
promise to be with His followers to the end of 
the ages. The Christian has direct testimony 
of the reality of this presence, and of the adapta- 
tion of Christianity to meet his deepest wants, 
and to satisfy the profoundest yearnings of the 
human heart.* 

Christians have been slow to believe and 
understand the meaning of Christ's promise, 
*'Lo I am with you always, even unto the end 
of the world." He is fulfilling that promise, 
as is shown by unnumbered proofs in all the 
Christian activities of our time, but we are 
slow to recognize it. Every good impulse in 
our own hearts, every unselfish deed, every 

*It is interesting to notice how the revised rendering of He- 
brews 11:2, concerning faith, sets forth the evidential value of 
Christian experience. The sentence, "For by it the elders 
obtained a good report," reads in the Revised Version, "For by- 
it the elders had witness borjie to them.'''' In two other passages, 
in the same chapter, (vs. 4 and 39) the same Greek words have 
the same rendering. Nor is there any doubt as to the accuracy of 
this translation. The thought is, that the elders all had witness 
borne to them of the reality of the things they believed, and of God 
in whom they believed, through the self-evidencing power of 
faith. It is not less true to-day, than it was true of the ancient 
worthies whose names and deeds are recorded in the 11th chapter 
of Hebrews — the Westminster Abbey of the New Testament — ■ 
that it is through faith, obeyed and practiced, that the soul has 
borne to it the witness of the truth of Christianity and of its 
adaptation to meet the needs of men. This is how faith is ^Hhe 
proving of things not seen'^ (Heb. 11:1 Rev. Ver). 

131 



Helps to Faith 

lionQst longing for a truer and better life, every 
sincere and earnest prayer, every victory we 
gain over our lower nature, every movement of 
the soul Godward, by wbicb we come to look 
at life and all its problems from tbe point of 
view which Christ occupies — all this is proof, 
incontestable, that God is carrying on in us the 
work He has begun, and that He will carry it 
on to completion, if we are willing to be led by 
His Spirit. It is not until we come to the full 
recognition of the immanence of God in our 
Christian experience, and the value of His 
inworking as proof of the truth of our Chris- 
tianity, that we can attain to that fullness of 
faith which found its expression in the words 
of the Apostle Paul, '*I know him whom I 
have believed, and I am persuaded that he is 
able to guard that which I have committed 
unto him against that day.''* 

*2Tim. 1:12. 



132 



XV 

THE CHURCH 

No CAREFUL student of the Bible can fail to 
be impressed with the gradual unfolding of the 
divine purpose as it manifests itself in the 
events of human history. The self-revelation 
of God passes through its successive stages in 
patriarchal and Hebrew history, and comes to 
its sublime culmination in the person of Jesus 
Christ. This wonderful life passes through its 
successive stages, culminating in His death for 
the sins of the world. His death, in turn, is 
followed by His resurrection from the dead, and 
this by His ascension and coronation. And 
then comes the special mission and dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, carrying forward in the 
hearts and lives of men the work of Christ. 
Out of this movement of the Spirit of God upon 
human hearts and lives, came that unique 
Christian experience of which we have spoken 
— an experience of the new transforming power 
of Christ on human life, the effect of which is 
to bring men evermore into harmony with the 
will of God. 

133 



Helps to Faith 

It is not to be supposed, for a moment, that 
this majestic forward movement of the divine 
purpose ceased with the ascension of Christ and 
the descent of the Holy Spirit. We have 
already seen that a new life, and a more abun- 
dant life, came into humanity through the work 
of Christ, supplemented and carried on by the 
Holy Spirit, and we are now to see that this 
new life with its new experiences, new joys, 
new aims, new ambitions, new hopes and 
aspirations, found expression in a new organ- 
ism — an association of those who were in pos- 
session of this common faith and common life 
for mutual fellowship, and for perpetuating and 
extending the new principles of the new religion 
which they had embraced. This organism is 
called the Church. It was a divine organism 
in the sense that its members were joined to 
Jesus Christ, their living Head, by a bond of 
faith and allegiance, and to each other by the 
ties of mutual love, having its source in their 
common Lord. It may be said, further, to be 
a divine organism, because the divine Spirit 
was the impelling force in the believers who 
thus associated themselves together, and because 
the principles which governed them in their 
collective capacity were divinely given. It 

134 



The Church 

was not an earthly organization resulting from 
worldly wisdom, and having worldly aims and 
ambitions, such as the lust of office and the 
passion for wealth or worldly power. It was 
rather a fraternity of believers held together by 
the cohesive power of a common love under the 
guidance of the same divine Spirit. Hence the 
Church came into being as naturally, as in- 
evitably, as flowers bloom, as rivers flow and as 
the tree springs from the acorn. It was the 
natural outflowing of the divine life through 
human channels to bless the world. It was, in 
another sense, the Word becoming flesh and 
dwelling among men, and showing forth the 
glory of God. The Church is, in an important 
sense, an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, as 
Jesus Christ was the incarnate Word. 

The reader will notice that we speak simply 
of the Church, and one who is familiar with 
our modern denominationalism may ask what 
Church we refer to. There is but one Church, 
Jesus Christ is the foundation for the one 
Church, for * 'other foundation can no man lay 
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. '' This 
Church is composed of all true believers in 
Christ. Christians have fenced themselves 
apart by calling themselves by different names, 

135 



Helps to Faith 

and adopting certain ecclesiastical forms and 
statements of doctrine, bnt all ttiat does not 
change the fact that there is and can be but 
one Church. The Christians that are within 
these various fenced-up parties, are Christians, 
not by virtue of their membership in these 
parties, but because of their faith in Jesus 
Christ and the possession of His life and spirit. 
They are Christians, in other words, in spite 
of their denominational peculiarities, rather 
than in consequence of them. 

There has never been a day since Pentecost 
when the Church was not. Wherever true 
believers have lived, manifesting the spirit and 
the life of Christ in their lives, there the Church 
has existed. As one of our own recent writers 
has said: *' Historic continuity is found, not in 
bishops and priests, not in organization and 
forms, but in the people who compose the 
Church — who are the Church, Since the found- 
ing of the Church on Pentecost, there has been 
an unbroken succession of Christian people — 
men and women in whom there lived a diviner 
life than in other men and women, a life taken 
from Christ. They have left us their hymns, 
their prayers, their confessions, the records of 
their experience, their struggles and sorrows and 

136 



The Church 

joys. They were made one by the life they 
lived in Christ. They showed unity and con- 
tinuity in every age by this life which they 
lived, not of themselves, but of God. They are 
seen in ancient Jerusalem and Antioch, and in 
modern lyondon and New York, in palace and 
hovel, in priest's robe and in peasant's gown. 
They are recognized, not by ecclesiastical title 
or pedigree or millinery, but by the spirit of the 
I/ord Jesus which they have held in common."* 
As a matter of convenience the believers in 
any given locality naturally meet together for 
their common worship and their mutual fellow- 
ship in Christ. Hence, we have the church at 
Jerusalem, the church at Antioch, at Corinth, 
Bphesus, Rome, etc. These were local con- 
gregations of Christians, having the common 
faith and the common life, and were bound 
together into a common brotherhood by their 
allegiance to the one Lord. This local use of 
the term church caused no confusion in the 
early centuries, because it was everywhere 
understood that these local assemblies were but 
parts of one common body — the church of the 
living God. The modern use of the word 
Church to designate a part of the Church uni- 

*F. D. Power. 

137 



Helps to Faith 

versal whicli holds certain peculiarities of doc- 
trine and government, was wholly unknown to 
the apostolic age. Inevitable as these denom- 
inational divisions and names seem to have been 
in consequence of the successive reformations 
which have marked the history of the Church 
in escaping the great apostasy known in history 
as Roman Catholicism, they have been none 
the less confusing and otherwise injurious to 
the life and progress of the Church. There is 
good reason to believe that these divisions, 
unknown to the New Testament, and growing 
out of a certain temporary condition of things 
in the life of the Church, will eventually pass 
away, and the Church will once more assert its 
essential unity, and go forth to accomplish its 
sublime mission in the world. 

We have dealt with this question of the 
Church, in this work, because many disturbing 
problems have arisen out of our divided Chris- 
tendom, which have proved serious hindrances 
to faith and a fruitful source of unbelief. But 
when we come to see how the Church stands 
related to the new life that is in Christ Jesus, 
as the visible means for its embodiment and for 
its propagation throughout the world; when it 
is understood that Christ has built but one 

138 



The Church 

Church, and that these walls of temporary 
division within it have been built by men and 
are destined to pass away, many of the obstacles 
to faith will vanish. The historic continuity 
of the Church has not been destroyed by these 
divisions, nor will they be permitted to prevent 
the fulfillment of Christ's prayer for the unity 
of His believers and for the conversion of the 
world. The I^ife of God in Christ has not 
yet found complete embodiment in any organi- 
zation. 

"Our little systems have their day, 

They have their day and cease to be; 
They are but broken lights of thee, 

And thou, oh Lord, art more than they." 

The Church of the future, the Church that is 
to be, will be a more perfect reflection of the 
divine will and character, for it is yet to be 
presented to Christ, *'a glorious Church, not 
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,'' to 
mar its beauty, its purity and its divine vigor. 
When John, the seer of Patmos, saw in rapt 
vision, that glorious Church of the future, he 
described it as *'The Holy City, new Jerusalem, 
coming down out of heaven from God, made 
ready as a bride adorned for her husband." 
The highest aim of the noblest souls on earth, 
to-day, is to assist in the building of that Holy 
City. 

139 



XVI 

THE WTERATURH OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 

In dealing now witli the origin of the New 
Testament literature, we are following still the 
divine order. First, there was the gradual and 
progressive self- revelation of God, reaching its 
climax in Jesus Christ and culminating in His 
death and resurrection. Then the Holy Spirit, 
whose advent was made possible through Christ's 
work and His subsequent glorification, began 
His mission on Pentecost. Out of that latest 
historical manifestation of God, as the Spirit of 
truth, came the Church, filled with the spirit of 
faith, of love and of life. And now, as we 
shall see, there came out of that great spiritual 
awakening and the new influx of life and light 
resulting from the dispensation of the Spirit, 
the remarkable literature which constitutes 
what we now call the New Testament. 

We are apt to think of the New Testament 
writings as antedating the Church and as being 
the producing cause of the Church. But such 
was not the case. This inversion of the divine 

140 



The Literature of the New Testament 

order arises from confusing together two things 
which are essentially different, namely, the 
revelation made through the life and teaching 
of Jesus Christ, and the literary record of that 
revelation which was made several years later. 
It is another popular misconception, closely 
connected with the one above mentioned, that 
God's revelations have been made chiefly, if 
not exclusively, in writing. As a matter of 
fact, as any careful student of the Bible can see, 
only a very small part of God's revelations 
have come in that way. God's method has 
been to reveal Himself in history, in life, in 
deeds, and especially in the life of His Son, 
Jesus Christ. Afterwards holy men, prompted 
by the Spirit of God, have made record of these 
revelations, and what we call the Scriptures are 
the result. This is true as relates both to the Old 
and to the New Testament Scriptures. *'God, 
having of old time spoken unto the fathers in 
the prophets by divers portions and in divers 
manners, hath at the end of these days spoken 
unto us in His Son." It was not simply to 
these prophets and to His Son that God spake, 
but in them, that is, in their lives, in their 
experiences, in their actions, as well as through 
their utterances, God's will was made known 
to men. 

141 



Helps to Faith 

While this is equally true in both dispensa- 
tions, the truth of it may perhaps be more 
readily apprehended in the case of the revela- 
tion through Christ. He wrote no book. Not 
a written line of His has come down to us. His 
revelation of God was made chiefly through 
His character, that is, what He was^ and by 
His deeds. True, He * 'spake as never man 
spake, '^ but He was content to leave His teach- 
ing, given in oral form, in the care of His 
disciples, who, in later years, under the quick- 
ening power of His Spirit, would be able to 
transmit it to the world. But we would strip 
His revelation of its chief value and signifi- 
cance, did we take out of it His matchless 
character. His perfect life. His mighty deeds. 
These revelations of God's character and will 
were given, of course, during the earthly minis- 
try of Christ; but there was no literary record 
made of them, at least not any which has come 
down to us, until years afterwards. There was 
no New Testament, as we know that book to- 
day, until years after the Church had been 
established and the Gospel had made large 
triumphs in the Roman Empire in winning 
men to allegiance to Jesus Christ. The great 
facts which make up the revelation of Christ 

142 



The Literature of the New Testament 

were delivered orally by those who "preached 
the Gospel with the Holy Spirit sent down 
from heaven.'* It was not until congregations of 
Christians had been established that any part 
of the New Testament literature was written, 
and the earliest of these writings were not the 
four Gospels, but letters addressed to churches 
growing out of their needs and designed to 
furnish necessary instruction to meet the exist- 
ing emergencies. Irater, the task of setting 
down, in some regular literary form, an account 
of Christ's life and teaching. His death and 
resurrection, was undertaken, resulting, among 
many other productions, perhaps, in the four 
Gospels which have come down to us. 

It is important for the reader to notice that 
this order of things is the natural order. L^itera- 
ture is a record of life. Out of our Revolution- 
ary War there sprang a literature in which is 
imbedded the deeds, the results, the heroism, 
the patriotism, which marked the revolutionary 
period. Out of our Civil War there came a 
literature consisting of patriotic songs, patriotic 
speeches and historical sketches and records of 
events, which were the product of the peculiar 
spirit and life of that crisis in our national 
history. We make a very clear distinction 

143 



Helps to Faith 

between the battle of Yorktown, for instance, 
or the battle of Gettysburg and the subsequent 
histories of these battles. In like manner the 
revelation of lofty patriotism, of military skill 
and of wise statesmanship, made in the lives of 
the great national heroes of these epochs, is 
never identified or confused with the subsequent 
record of their lives and their achievements as 
given in history. In each case it was the 
preceding life with its deeds that made the 
literature possible. It is equally true that the 
wonderful life, the perfect character and the 
mighty achievements of Jesus of Nazareth, 
together with His words, in which He mani- 
fested the character of God, constitute the real 
revelation which He made, and that it was 
completed in His life, death and resurrection. 
The New Testament literature, which, as we 
have seen, came afterwards, is the partial rec- 
ord of that revelation. We say the partial 
record, because the New Testament does not 
pretend to record all that Jesus said and did 
during His earthly ministry. 

It is this vital relation between the New 
Testament literature and the actual revelation 
made through Christ, that gives to it its 
supreme value and its imperishable nature. It 

144 



The Literature of the New Testament 

is a picture of real life that was lived among 
men. It is a record of the actual deeds of an 
actual Person, having for His sublime mission 
the revealing of the Father in order to win men 
to spiritual sonship. It is biography, history, 
prophecy, instruction, precept, example and 
exhortation, all steeped in the spirit of Christ 
and all bearing witness to the supreme excellency 
of Christ and of His religion. The invention 
of such a record is beyond credibility to any 
sane mind. It bears the marks, everywhere, of 
reality. Because Jesus Christ lives, this record 
of His life and deeds will live, also, and 
wherever and whenever honest hearts look into 
this record, they will perceive the presence and 
the picture of the one perfect lyife, and will be 
drawn towards it as the needle to the pole, 
because *'in Him was life and the life was the 
light of men." 

It may be asked what practical benefit comes 
from the distinction we have pointed out be- 
tween God's revelation, which was made largely 
through life and action, and the subsequent 
record of it in the Scriptures. In the first 
place, it seems to us very helpful to faith to see 
that God has followed the natural order of 
things in making Himself known to men, 

(10) 145 



Helps to Faith 

instead of employing arbitrary and unusual 
methods. And then the distinction helps us to 
understand the true relation between revelation 
and inspiration. Clearly, it was the revelation 
of God in Christ, brought home to the mind and 
hearts of His first disciples by the Holy Spirit, 
that inspired them to holy living, to heroic 
deeds, to effective preaching, and later to do 
the writing which has come down to us in the 
New Testament. Without this revelation there 
could have been no such inspiration — no such 
mental illumination and spiritual exaltation — 
as they possessed and as they manifested in 
what they said, what they did, what they wrote 
and what they were. Again, the recognition of 
this distinction will help to free us from bon- 
dage to the letter, which killeth, and enable us 
to see beyond the letter the life through which 
God has spoken, and which is larger than any 
human speech. Then we shall cease to be 
troubled about little verbal differences and al- 
leged discrepancies between the various records 
of the events in the life of Jesus, because the 
revelation itself was larger than any literary 
record of it. Not even yet, after nearly twenty 
centuries of study, under the tuition of the Holy 
Spirit, has the Church exhausted the riches 

146 



The Literature of the New Testament 

of that revelation of God in Christ Jesus. 

We can not be too grateful for the record that 
has come down to us in the Gospels of Christ's 
life and character, of His doctrine and deeds; 
nor for the record of what followed His resur- 
rection and ascension in the work of the Holy 
Spirit through the apostles, prophets and teach- 
ers of the early Church. But we can not 
understand these writings properly until we 
come to recognize their relation to the revela- 
tion made in Jesus Christ. A recent author has 
expressed the true relation, as we conceive it, 
between Christ and not only the New Testa- 
ment, but the whole Bible, in answering the 
question, **Does the Bible give us Christ, or 
does Christ give us the Bible?" He says: 
^'Christ gives us the Bible. The Old Testa- 
ment came into existence because of the revela- 
tion that was preparatory to Christ, and the 
New because of Christ Himself. If there had 
been no Christ, there would have been no Chris- 
tian Bible. If there were no Bible, Christ 
would still be what He is, and men could be 
saved by Him. He was effectively at work 
among men before the New Testament was 
written to show Him forth, and out of His 
effective saving work the New Testament itself 

147 



Helps to Faith 

proceeded. Christ, who is indispensable to 
Christianity, gives us the Bible, which is of 
inestimable value to Christianity; or, Christ, 
who is Christianity, gives us the Bible, which 
teaches us Christianity. Yet this very state- 
ment implies that in another sense the Bible 
gives us Christ. It informs us concerning Him. 
It was written and preserved that we might 
know Him and God through Him. It is His 
servant, and we owe to it our most effective 
knowledge respecting His historical reality and 
significance. Only in this character is the 
Bible rightly understood. ***** 

** Christianity is not a book-religion, but a life- 
religion. It centers in a person and consists in 
a life, and the scriptures are its servant, not its 
source. To treat it, in proclaiming it or defend- 
ing it, as a book-religion is to resign one of its 
best points of advantage."* 

Some may doubt the statement that *4f there 
were no Bible, Christ would still be what He is, 
and men could be saved by Him.'* There is 
no question but that Christianity would have 
become much more corrupt than it is if it had 
depended upon tradition alone to perpetuate it- 
self in the world, for the Scriptures are the rule 

* ''Outline of Christian Theology," page 21. 

148 



The Literature of the New Testament 

by which all reformations are effected. And 
yet it is difficult indeed to believe that the story 
of Christ, once it was lodged in the hearts of 
men, would ever have perished from the earth 
or have lost its saving power. In any event we 
can not too highly prize these sacred writings 
regarded as the record, by Spirit-guided men, of 
those revelations which precede, and reach their 
culmination in, Christ, and of the wonderful 
results which flowed from that revelation, as 
seen in this New Testament literature. 



149 



XVII 

. IS REVELATION CONTINUOUS ? 

We have seen, thus far, tliat the results of 
the Holy Spirit's work in the Christian dispen- 
sation have been the Christian experience, the 
Christian Church and the Christian Scriptures, 
and these in the order named. The work of 
producing the Christian experience in new con- 
verts we know is continuous. The gospel is as 
much the power of God unto salvation to-day 
as it was in the first century, and the Holy 
Spirit, through that gospel, is still convincing 
men of sin, of righteousness and of the judg- 
ment. The work of establishing new congre- 
gations of Christians is also continuous. The 
very same reasons that led the earliest converts 
into association with each other, in local com- 
munities, lead them into such association 
to-day. Why, then, does not the work of 
increasing the New Testament Scriptures con- 
tinue? If the Holy Spirit continues in the 
Church, why have we not a right to expect 
Him to inspire men to write additional sacred 
works for the New Testament canon? Did 

150 



Is Revelation Continuous? 

revelation cease with the earthly ministry of 
Jesus, and inspiration with the last of the 
apostles? 

These are questions which have been stumb- 
ling-blocks in the way of honest faith, and this 
is the only reason why we deal with them here. 
We shall be grateful if we may be able to throw 
any light upon questions which have perplexed 
so many minds. It does not follow, by any 
means, that if the Holy Spirit abides in the 
Church we are to expect that His activities will 
continue to take the same form which they did 
in the apostolic age. If we bear in mind the 
distinction which w^e have tried to make clear 
between the revelation of God in Christ, and the 
subsequent record of that revelation in the New 
Testament Scriptures, it will help us to see why 
revelation, in the sense of a direct manifesta- 
tion of God in history and life, and inspiration, 
in the sense of the spiritual impulse and guid- 
ance which led to the record of that revelation, 
are not continuous. It is no arbitrary break in 
the continuity of God's purpose. Why should 
God reveal Himself again in the person of His 
Son, seeing that the revelation through Christ 
was full and complete? Why should there be a 
continuous or repeated record of the revelation 

151 



Helps to Faith 

whicli was completed during the ministry of 
Christ? These questions answer themselves 
and indicate very clearly why the Christian 
revelation, being made in a Person, was com- 
pleted in Christ, and why inspiration, regarded 
as the spiritual qualification or divine impulse 
for recording this revelation, was limited to the 
apostolic age. 

And yet while thus guarding against the 
error of modern pretenders who claim to receive 
direct revelations from God, but whose claims 
are discredited by the character of the revela- 
tions they profess to receive, let us be careful, 
on the other hand, not to fall into the opposite 
error of supposing that the Holy Spirit has 
completed His work in the Church and in 
revealing truth to men. Nothing is more clearly 
taught in the New Testament than the continu- 
ous presence in the heart of individual believers 
and in the Church, of the Holy Spirit, who is 
to ''take of the things of Christ^' and show 
them unto us; in other words, to make real to 
us the great truths contained in Christ's revela- 
tion. To deny the truth of this proposition is 
to contradict each man's individual conscious 
experience, and the lessons of history. Every 
true Christian is conscious of growing into a 

152 



Is Revelation Continuous? 

clearer and larger apprehension of truth, and 
especially of a growing appreciation of Christ, 
and of the redemption which we have in Him. 
This growth is either the result of our unaided 
human intellects, or of the quickening and 
guiding power of the Holy Spirit acting through 
our mental and moral natures. The latter view 
is the only one that harmonizes either with the 
Scriptures or with our own experience. 

We see the same results when we read the 
history of the Church as a whole, and find how 
it has passed from one phase of belief to an- 
other, outgrowing an old theory and laying it 
aside, and taking up a new one, and, ultimately, 
a truer and larger one, and ever advancing 
toward a larger measure of truth and a more 
scriptural faith. Sometimes this progress has 
been gradual and almost imperceptible, while 
at other times distinct reforms have been in- 
augurated under the leadership of men of 
spiritual insight and understanding, which have 
marked a radical change in religious beliefs and 
practices. How can we account for these 
religious reformations in the Church, including 
that of the nineteenth century, without attrib- 
uting the impulse which led to their inaugura- 
tion, to the Holy Spirit? It is impossible to 

153 



Helps to Faith 

study these phenomena in the history of the 
Church without recognizing the presence and 
power of the Spirit of truth leading ever on- 
ward to a truer apprehension of Christ and to a 
larger and a more loyal faith in Him. What 
is this but the fulfillment of Christ's promise to 
His disciples to be with them *'alway, even 
to the end of the woild"? 

We can not in this connection forbear giving 
a somewhat extended quotation from a recent 
work to which we feel much indebted for its 
clear statements on many of the great problems 
of Christian theology: *'Did the life and work 
of Christ complete the Christian revelation? In 
one sense, Yes; in another sense, No. The 
direct personal manifestation of God in human 
life was made once for all in Christ, and com- 
pleted. But the revelation had still to be made 
effective in individual men and in the larger 
life of man, else God would not be actually 
known by means of it, and it would miss the 
aim of revelation. Christ the revealer and God 
the revealed must be made inwardly known to 
those for whose sake the manifestation had been 
undertaken; the revelation must be carried to 
theii inner life and be made real in their expe- 
rience. Thus Paul says (Gal. i:i6), 'It pleased 

154 



Is Revelation Continuous? 

God to reveal His Son in me.' So 2 Cor. 4:6. 
The agent in this work is the Holy Spirit, and 
the results are the Christian experience and the 
spiritual Church. This is what Christ promised 
(John 16:14), 'He shall glorify me; for he shall 
take of mine, and shall show it unto you.' 

"Is this revelation? Certainly it is, though 
of course not in the same sense with that in 
which we say that God was revealed in the 
person of Christ. If we deny that this is 
revelation, we shall have to define revelation in 
external fashion, and find some other name for 
God's actual becoming-known to His creatures. 
This is not new revelation of additional matter, 
but it is the completing of Christ's revealing 
action. Christ reveals God, and the Holy Spirit 
reveals Christ to those whom His revelation 
was intended to benefit. The two works are 
parts of one process of becoming-known on 
God's part, and both are elements in His revela- 
tion. The work of the Holy Spirit is continu- 
ous until now, and is still a revealing work, 
though not in the independent sense in which 
the work of Christ was a revealing work. The 
living Spirit still reveals in men the Son of God 
who reveals the Father. So new is Christ to 
men that this often seems like fresh revealing; 

155 



Helps to Faith 

and so inexhaustible is Christ that He often 
becomes known in aspects that have not been 
discerned before.''* 

There is no danger, then, that we shall ever 
outgrow the New Testament. The men who 
under God were the authors of these inspired 
writings were so near to Christ, were so exalted 
in thought and in spiritual power by His revela- 
tions, and were so filled with the Spirit, that 
what they wrote has stood the test of all the 
intervening centuries. It was an age of crea- 
tive power and energy in the Church; a period 
of time lifted into perpetual prominence above 
preceding and succeeding ages by the personal 
presence of the Son of God, revealing the 
Father in His life, doctrine and deeds. All the 
progress hitherto made by the Church and ail 
that is likely to be made in the future will 
never render obsolete these incomparable writ- 
ings; but under the illuminating power of that 
same divine Spirit which enabled these holy 
men of old to produce these writings, there is 
much new truth contained therein to be revealed 
to men as they shall be lifted to heights where 
they will be able to apprehend it. In this fact 
lies our hope for the growing unity of the 

* "An Outline of Christian Theology,'' pp. 15, 16. 

156 



Is Revelation Continuous? 

Church and the ultimate falling away of all 
division walls which have hindeied the fellow- 
ship and co-operation of God's people in the 
work of the world's evangelization. 

Let us believe that there are heights of truth 
which human thought has never yet scaled, as 
well as profound depths which have never yet 
been explored. We know that this is true in 
nature; why not in revelation? God has re- 
vealed Himself in nature as well as in revela- 
tion, for the heavens declare His glory and the 
earth is full of the riches of His knowledge. 
How much we have learned about God from a 
better understanding of nature since the days of 
the apostles! Nature was then, substantially, 
what it is now, and revelation, objectively con- 
sidered, was then what it is now; but in each 
case what vast progress has been made by the 
human mind in understanding this two-fold 
revelation of God! But truth has not yet been 
exhausted, and revelation, in the sense of com- 
ing to a clearer apprehension and inward reali- 
zation of truth, will continue until we come to 
that fullness of knowledge in which "we shall 
know even as we are known." 



157 



XVIII 

CHRISTIANITY VINDICATED BY 
HISTORY 

We liave now traced the self-revelation of 
God through its progressive unfoldings, and 
have pointed out some of the principal results 
of this revelation as seen in the individual and 
collective life of man. We have seen how this 
revelation of God in its various stages has 
adapted itself to the needs of men in every age, 
and how the Spirit of God, working through 
believing and obedient hearts with its creative 
energy, has given and is giving birth to reli- 
gious movements, agencies and instrumentali- 
ties for the furtherance of the kingdom of God. 
Before closing this affirmative treatment of our 
subject it would seem pertinent to inquire what 
influence history has had upon the extraordi- 
nary claims made by Christ. Have these claims 
been refuted or confirmed by the testimony of 
history? 

Jesus claimed to be the * * lyight of the World . ' ' 
This can mean nothing less than that He 
embodied in His own life and teaching ultimate 

158 



Christianity Vindicated by History 

truth as concerns God, and man's relations to 
Him, or in the reahn of morality and religion. 
Has the intellectual and moral progress of man- 
kind reached a point of development from 
which it must look backward to the authority 
of Jesus and to His doctrine? Have the nine- 
teen centuries of Christian progress developed 
any imperfections in the character or teaching 
of Jesus? These questions must be answered 
in the negative by all thoughtful, candid men. 
No one has the presumption to claim that he 
knows a morality or a religion that is superior 
to that exemplified in the life of Jesus. When 
we consider the time in which Jesus lived, and 
the people among whom he lived and labored, 
and the limitations which these conditions im- 
posed on every other man of His time, this fact 
becomes most significant in its evidential value. 
To the claim of Jesus to be the ''Light of the 
World," the Muse of History responds, ''Yes, 
thou Prophet of Galilee, thou hast been the 
Ivight of the World. Where Thy light has 
shone, human life has taken on new meaning 
and dignity, and civilization has taken a for- 
ward stride. But in the absence of Thy light 
the world abides in darkness." 
Jesus said, "I am the Bread of life." Do 

159 



Helps to Faith 

these nineteen centuries of history show that He 
can satisfy the heart-hunger of men? L<et the 
millions of those who have tested His religion, 
answer the question. There is a hunger of the 
mind for truth, and a hunger of the heart for 
love and for communion with God, which only 
Jesus Christ has been able to satisfy. Those 
who have drunk deepest of the water of life 
which He offers have realized the deepest satis- 
factions of mind and heart. They ask nothing 
better, they can conceive of nothing higher, 
than that which Christ has given to them and 
promises to give, in increasing measure, as they 
are able to receive it. 

Jesus said that He came that men "might 
have life and that they might have it more 
abundantly.'' What is the testimony of his- 
tory concerning the effects of His teaching, of 
His religion, upon the lives of men? Is it 
not this, that the highest types of character 
which the world has known have been those 
which have been most nearly conformed to the 
character of Christ, and that these are they 
who have drunk most deeply of His spirit? 
Not only is His character the highest ideal 
known to men, but His religion is the only 
power that can enable men to realize, in any 

160 



Christianity Vindicated by History 

worthy degree, that high ideal. This is the 
witness of all history as to the influence of the 
religion of Jesus Christ on the lives of men. 

But Jesus established a kingdom, and taught 
men how to live in relation with each other as 
well as with God. He laid down certain fun- 
damental principles that should govern the 
actions of men in their relations with each 
other, and taught His disciples to pray that 
God^s will, as taught by Him, might be done 
on earth as it is done in heaven. What is the 
verdict of history as to the effect of these prin- 
ciples on human society and government? It 
is undoubtedly to the effect that, in so far as 
these principles have been actually applied to 
human relationships, they have vindicated their 
divine claims by the beneficent results which 
they have produced. It is a matter of profound 
regret that these principles which Christ taught 
have had so little practical application in the 
spheres of government, commerce, industry 
and even in the Church which He founded. 
Sufficient application, however, has been made 
of His teaching to show, incontestably, that if 
they were perfectly followed by men in all the 
relations of life there would immediately dawn 

11 161 



Helps to Faith 

the ^'new heaven and the new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness.'' 

It is not difficult to trace the wonderful 
growth in democracy back to its source in the 
teaching and life of Jesus, who exalted the 
dignity of man, put the human soul into direct 
relation with God as Father, and laid suprema 
emphasis upon man's moral and spiritual 
nature. It is this conception of the value of 
man, and the sacredness of his nature, that has 
overthrown despotisms and tyrannies, and has 
given to the common people an increasing 
share in the privileges and benefits of govern- 
ments. To this same teaching, as illustrated 
in Jesus' own life, we are indebted for all those 
philanthropic and benevolent movements and 
institutions which have for their purpose the 
caring for the weak, unfortunate and defective 
classes of society. These do not exist where 
the influence of Christ has not gone and in- 
spired the hearts of the people with altruistic 
and unselfish aims. 

In the midst of a world of mortals Jesus pro- 
claimed Himself as *^the Resurrection and the 
Life." Has His religion succeeded in opening 
up the life beyond to the view of faith, and in 
delivering men from the bondage of the fear of 

162 



Christianity Vindicated by History 

death? Does it have power to shed the glory 
of the immortal life upon the life that now is, 
and to redeem it from drudgery and dreariness? 
L<et history again furnish the answer from the 
army of Christian martyrs who have gone to 
the stake, to wild beasts, and to the fires of 
martyrdom, singing songs of triumph. I^et it 
gather its proofs from the death-beds of dying 
Christians whose faces have been radiant with 
''the light that never shone on sea or land,'^ 
and whose last utterances have been words of 
cheer and hope. I^et the lives of unnumbered 
thousands of humble, faithful Christians, living 
lives of toil and sacrifice here, and rejoicing in 
the hope of the glory of God to be revealed in 
them hereafter, answer the question. 

Surely history has vindicated the claims of 
Jesus Christ, and its pages of Christian heroism 
and of Christian progress furnish the highest 
proofs that the religion which He taught was 
made for man, is adapted to man, and should 
be accepted by all men as God's highest gift to 
the race. 



163 



PART II 
Some Obstacles to Faith 



OBJECTIONS CI.ASSIFIED 

WK have now reached a point in our discus- 
sion where we may take up the second feature 
of our work, as outlined in our preliminary 
statement, namely, the removal of certain 
obstacles which have stood in the way of faith 
and have caused many to stumble into skep- 
ticism and infidelity. In dealing with this part 
of our subject, we need not go back to theories 
and doctrines which have long since become 
obsolete and have ceased to exert any influence 
whatever upon present-day thought. We may 
content ourselves with examining some of the 
more prominent of those doctrinal stumbling- 
blocks which even to-day are hindrances in the 
way of honest inquirers after the truth. Some 
of these may be obsolescent, but they are not 
wholly obsolete. It will hardly be possible for 
us to treat the questions which we are now to 
consider without treading upon controverted 
ground, but our purpose will be to deal with all 
such questions in an irenic spirit and with the 
sole aim of removing causes of honest doubt. 

167 



Helps to Faith 

These obstacles divide themselves into two 
classes: First, those which consist of objections 
made by unbelievers, through their misconcep- 
tion of scriptural teaching, and, second, those 
false or partial views of the Bible which be- 
lievers have put forth as matters of faith and as 
necessary for one to believe. We do not know 
which class of obstacles has done most to 
hinder faith, but we are inclined to the opinion 
that Christianity has suffered more from its 
professed friends than from its avowed enemies. 
The enemies of Christianity have made effective 
use of the false or inadequate theories and doc- 
trines of its professed friends. They do not 
stop to discriminate between Christianity as 
taught in the New Testament, and Christian- 
ity as represented by the doctrines and com- 
mandments of men. Many men classed as 
infidels in past centuries received their repu- 
tation as such from protesting against or ridi- 
culing doctrines, dogmas, superstitions and 
practices which find no authority in the New 
Testament. These men were probably made 
infidels because they identified this false teach- 
ing and practice with Christianity itself. If 
religionists had always been careful to discrim- 
inate between the essential facts and truths of 

168 



Objections Classified 

Christianity, on the one hand, and their meta- 
physical hair-splitting and doctrinal specula- 
tions on the other, their false teaching would 
not have proved so serious an obstacle in the 
way of faith. But this is what your religious 
dogmatist never does. He evermore identifies 
his interpretations of the Bible, and his pecu- 
liar views, with the truth itself, and it is this 
fact that has made his teaching so hurtful to 
faith. 



169 



II 

ORIGIN OF MORAIv EVIIv 

I^et us concern ourselves first with that class 
of misconceptions which affect the character of 
God. Since God, according to certain teach- 
ings, has * 'predestinated whatever comes to 
pass," why did He introduce moral evil into 
the world, to work out all the misery and 
wretchedness which we see following in its train? 
This has been an important part of the stock 
in trade of unbelievers from time immemorial, 
but it has received fresh cogency from certain 
creeds which have furnished these objectors 
their major premise. Many honest minds have 
been unable to discriminate between the fore- 
knowledge and foreordination of God, and since 
they can not deny that God must have foreseen 
man's sin, they do not see how to escape the 
conclusion that he ordained that man should 
sin. A very important fact which even many 
theologians have overlooked, and which we 
can hardly expect unbelievers to recognize, is 
the creation of man in God's image, involv- 
ing, among other things, a free will, or with a 

170 



Origin of Moral Evil 

will^ as we might say, for without the element 
of freedom it would not be will. If God created 
man a free, self-determining personality, with 
power to choose the right or the wrong, then it 
ought to be clear that moral evil came into the 
world through the abuse of this moral freedom. 
If it be said that God should have made man 
without the power to commit sin, the obvious 
answer is that in so making him He would have 
deprived him, at the same time, of the power 
to do right; that is, he would have made a 
machine and not a man. God wanted a being 
as the crown of His creative work in the world 
who would love and obey him from choice, and 
He could create such a being only by endowing 
him with the sublime prerogative of choice. 
God's father-heart must have yearned for the 
existence of beings in His own image, capable 
of loving Him and entering into fellowship 
with Him. Hence He made man with a mind 
to understand, a heart to love, and a will to 
choose. No doubt He foresaw that sin would 
result from this freedom of choice, but He must 
have foreseen, also, that out of this moral 
freedom there would come at last a redeemed 
humanity that would vindicate the wisdom of 
His action in creating man in His own image. 

171 



Helps to Faith 

This is the true ground for a rational optimism. 

Man sins from his own free choice. No 
theology or philosophy can overthrow that fact. 
Every man's conscience is a witness against him, 
that when he sinned he did so from choice. He 
could have done otherwise. When our acts 
result from compulsion, we have no conscious- 
ness of sin. It is only when we have the power 
to do right and choose to do wrong, that our 
consciences condemn us. The remorse that 
follows sin grows out of the consciousness that 
we yielded to the lower when we ought to have 
yielded to the higher motive. There is nothing 
in the Bible to controvert these facts of human 
experience. On the contrary the biblical rec- 
ord is but a transcript of our personal experi- 
ences. The difficulty has not come from the 
teaching of the Bible on this subject, but from 
false theologies and philosophies which have 
not been true to the facts of human experience 
and to the laws of human nature. 

God's character for goodness, then, is not 
impeached by this view of the origin of moral 
evil. No sane man thinks of blaming the 
Almighty for creating him a free moral agent 
with the power to choose his own destiny, 
instead of making him a mere machine, acting 

172 



Origin of Moral Evil 

only as lie is acted upon by external force. 
Every one who thinks rightly on this subject 
feels a lasting debt of gratitude and of obliga- 
tion to God for having endowed him with the 
power of choosing, making it possible for him 
to choose the right, to pursue the right, and, if 
need be, to suffer for the right, that he may at 
last inherit the crown of righteousness. Espe- 
cially is this true in view of the fact that, 
through the gift of His Son, God has made it 
possible for sinful men to overcome the evil 
that is within and without them, and to attain, 
ultimately, to moral and spiritual perfection. 

Instead, therefore, of finding a stumbling- 
block in the way of faith in the existence of 
moral evil in the world, we find in it and in the 
cause which led to it the highest possible 
incentive to faith, seeing that it is through the 
power of faith that we are united to God and 
receive strength for overcoming our sins and 
attaining at last to the perfect freedom of the 
redeemed children of God. So we shall find 
that many of these so-called obstacles to faith 
may become stepping-stones to a higher and 
truer faith, as well as to a clearer and better 
understanding of God's ways with men. 



173 



Ill 

EI.KCTION 

If the doctrine of election had no standing 
whatever in scripture, it could not have held 
sway over the minds of so many men through 
so many centuries. There is a scriptural doc- 
trine of election, but it has been perverted and 
its meaning and spirit have been so changed as 
to justify its classification here among the 
obstacles to faith. In its perverted form it 
represents God as having elected from all eter- 
nity those who are to be saved, without any 
reference whatever to man's choice in the mat- 
ter, or to any moral condition in man disposing 
him to seek salvation. It is conceived to be 
based wholly on God's sovereignty, and man's 
free agency has no part in determining his 
election or non-election. The number of per- 
sons thus elected to salvation is so definitely 
fixed that it can be neither increased nor dimin- 
ished. All others, not chosen by arbitrary 
decree of God, were said to be passed by and 
permitted to suffer the wrath of God through 
eternal ages for the glory of God's sovereignty. 

174 



Election 

It is true that this doctrine has been modified, 
to some extent, in recent times, but that it is 
yet a stumbling-block in the way of faith can 
not be doubted. It is an imputation upon God's 
character, which can not stand in the light of 
the revelation of Jesus Christ, in which God's 
fatherhood is fundamental. That any true 
father could select some of his children to be 
greatly blessed and favored, while others were 
doomed to endless torment through no fault of 
their own, but because the father so willed it, 
is incredible. Jesus reasoned from the human 
to the divine fatherhood when He said, *'If ye, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your 
children, how much more shall your heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
Him?" From this process of reasoning we 
are clearly justified in asking, '*If you, earthly 
fathers, know how to treat your children im- 
partially, and your moral sense would resent 
the policy of favoring some and of imposing 
great hardships and privations upon others, and 
that without any reference to the character of 
your children, how much more does your 
Father in heaven know how to treat those 
whom He has created in His own image, on 
principles of equity and fatherly compassion, 

175 



Helps to Faith 

disdaining any partiality of treatment or re- 
spect of persons to promote His own glory and 
to manifest His imperial sovereignty?" The 
conclusion is inevitable that the doctrine of 
election, as it has been taught in the creeds, is 
utterly inconsistent with the revelation of Jesus 
Christ, as it relates to God's fatherhood. That 
it is also out of harmony with the tenor of New 
Testament teaching, that Christ died for all, 
that all men everywhere are commanded to re- 
pent, that God is no respecter of persons, but 
that whosoever will may drink of the water of 
life, freely, is sufficiently evident not to require 
any argument to make it more manifest. 

The New Testament doctrine of election is 
based on that of the Old Testament. Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the prophets, 
were all elect men chosen by God for special 
service. So Israel was an elect race, chosen 
for a special mission in carrying out God's pur- 
poses toward the whole world. It is the right 
of God to elect such men and such nations as 
may seem wise to Him, for the carrying out of 
His gracious plans, which Paul vindicates in 
the Roman letter. (Chaps. IX-XI). It is 
easy to see how this same principle would be 
applied to the Christian calling. "lyike Israel, 

176 



Election 

the Christian people are chosen of God for the 
good of the world. Instead of holding that the 
elect are the only ones that can be saved, it is 
more accordant with the scriptures to hold that 
the elect are elect for the sake of the non-elect 
— that is, they are chosen by God to serve for 
the saving of those who have not been brought 
to God as they have been. The non-elect in 
God's own time may become elect." To this 
sound statement by a recent Calvinistic author 
we would add that ''God's own time" is when 
they shall hear the gospel of God's grace, 
which is the divine call to repentance and new- 
ness of life. ''Now is the accepted time; now 
is the day of salvation." Those who heed this 
divine call are God's elect. They have accepted 
Him whom God has chosen to be the Savior of 
men. These are exhorted to make their "call- 
ing and election sure." Christian election is 
not without human choice. The colored brother 
was right who did not believe that his master 
belonged to the elect, because he had never 
heard of his being a candidate. Election to 
salvation is never thrust upon a soul against its 
will. Moreover, the Christian who comes to 
think he is elect for his own sake, instead of 
being saved for service in saving others, has 

(12) 177 



Helps to Faith 

made the same mistake as did the Jews, God's 
ancient elect people, and must suffer the same 
fate — ultimate rejection. 

There is no doubt a great doctrine of pre- 
destination taught in the New Testament, but 
it is not that of predestinating certain persons 
to salvation and others to condemnation. Paul 
speaks of God's "eternal purpose which he pur- 
posed in Christ Jesus our I^ord." (Eph. 3:11). 
In another place he declares this purpose to be 
**to sum up all things in Christ, the things in 
the heavens and the things upon the earth." 
The salvation and unification of the race was 
God's purpose in Christ Jesus. It is also His 
purpose that those who believe in Christ shall 
be conformed to the image of Christ. He has 
foreordained that. (Rom. 8:29). Christ is the 
ideal, the divine pattern, which God has had in 
mind from the beginning, into whose image it 
is His * 'eternal purpose" to bring all men who 
will accept the salvation offered in the gospel. 
This is a predestination which invites, but does 
not force, our free wills. 

This rational doctrine of election, which is 
the New Testament doctrine, offers no obstacle 
in the way of faith. It relieves God of the 
imputation of partiality and arbitrariness, which 

178 



Election 

w^^ involved in the old doctrine as it is written 
in the creeds, and makes it harmonize with 
God's character as Father, and with man's 
nature as a free moral agent. It also removes 
an excuse which many have been making for 
not becoming Christians — namely, that God's 
election robs them of any individual responsi- 
bility in the matter of their salvation, seeing 
that the number of the elect is unalterably fixed 
by a decree of God. It places the responsibility 
for being non-elect, where it properly belongs, 
— on those who, having heard the gospel, refuse 
to accept its glad message and surrender their 
lives to the lyordship of Jesus Christ. Thus 
the doctrine of election becomes a call to faith 
rather than an obstacle. 



179 



IV 
SIN, SAI.VATION, RETRIBUTION 

Thk objection whicli has been raised against 
the prevailing views on the above subjects, 
which we have classed together because of their 
intimate relation, is that they are arbitrary, 
artificial, and out of harmony with that divine 
order which we see everywhere manifest in 
the universe. It has been too often assumed 
that the popular teaching on these subjects is 
the teaching of the scriptures, and that, there- 
fore, the Bible is not a reliable source of infor- 
mation on religious questions. Men of skeptical 
views are often the slowest to note the progress 
of religious thought in those who may justly be 
called representative men of the Church, and 
are found waging war against the Bible for 
teaching doctrines which have long since been 
left behind by its most thoughtful friends. 

We need not here enter into what the theo- 
logians of the past called ''original sin," which 
was supposed to cleave to all Adam's posterity, 
inherited guilt or total hereditary depravity, 
further than to say that no theologian who has 

180 



Sin, Salvation, Retribution 

the ear of the public to-day, holds to these 
doctrines as they were ouce stated and believed. 
Adam and Kve fell, as all their descendants 
have fallen, by yielding to the solicitations to 
evil or subordinating the higher to the lower, 
and thus disobeying God. We have seen this 
tragedy going on before our eyes, and have 
known its reality in our own personal experi- 
ences. Adam's posterity inherited, not Adam's 
sin or his guilt, but a morally depraved nature 
with its tendency to sin. Sin is man's own 
voluntary act, whereby he disobeys God speak- 
ing through his conscience or his moral judg- 
ment. It is choosing the lower in preference 
to the higher, and subordinating the will of 
God to one's own will. It is separating oneself 
from God, who is the source of life, and thus 
entering upon a course whose end is death. 

There have been created many artificial sins, 
growing out of artificial ecclesiastical regula- 
tions, which have done much to obscure the 
real meaning and awful nature of sin as it is 
revealed to us in the scriptures and especially 
in the life, teaching and death of Jesus Christ. 
Impurity is best revealed by purity, darkness 
by light, and sin by holiness. It is the white 
light of Christ's life and character that reveals 

181 



Helps to Faith 

fhe awful blackness of the world's sin and its 
dire need of salvation. Measured by bis life, 
selfishness, covetousness, hatred of men, pride, 
impurity of heart and unbelief are the great 
sins which ruin the soul and produce strife and 
wretchedness in society. The opposites of the 
virtues emphasized in the beatitudes are, in 
Christ's thought, the chief sins from which 
men need to be saved. Hence they that are 
proud in spirit, that are satisfied with them- 
selves and have no sense of demerit, the haughty 
and ambitious, with no aspirations after a better, 
purer life, the cruel and hard-hearted, the 
impure in heart, the strife-makers, those who 
take care to be on the popular side rather than 
on the right side, and hence are never perse- 
cuted for righteousness' sake — these are the 
chief sinners and most unlike the citizens of 
His kingdom. 

Salvation is the attainment of those charac- 
teristics which become citizens of a heavenly 
kingdom. In a word, it is becoming Christlike. 
The church is an institution — a school — for 
helping those who enter it to attain Christlike 
characters. To it are to be added those — and 
only those — who are in process of being saved. 

There is a more limited sense in which the 

182 



Sin, Salvation, Retribution 

word saved is sometimes used in the New Tes- 
tament, as indicating the state of those who- 
have changed their attitude to Christ from that 
of rebellion or indifference to discipleship, ac- 
cepting Him as I^ord, and receiving forgiveness 
of past sins. But the broader meaning of the 
word includes the whole spiritual process by 
which the sinner is brought into reconciliation 
with God and into the moral image of His Son. 
An inadequate view of what salvation means is 
at the bottom of much of the religious indiffer- 
ence manifested by church members. The same 
inadequate conception of the great salvation 
offered to men by Christ, has resulted in a 
vagueness of teaching on the part of the church 
which does not tend to develop specific traits of 
character as an essential part of that salvation. 
A word must suffice here, where a volume 
might be written. Why does not the church 
take on more of the character of a school and 
train its members in the Christian graces until 
they stand as approved types of citizenship in 
the kingdom of God? 

A rational and scriptural view of sin and 
salvation will correct the false and arbitrary 
notions of future reward and punishment. It 
has not been sufficiently understood that right- 

183 



Helps to Faith 

eousness of character carries its reward with 
it, by putting man in right relations with God, 
and opening up to him all the possibilities of 
development, thus enabling him to achieve a 
noble destiny; and that sin contains within it 
the seeds which produce the ultimate harvest of 
corruption and death. No profounder word has 
ever been uttered on this subject than that 
spoken by Paul: *'Be not deceived: God is not 
mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap.'' This is the great law 
of cause and effect which holds sway in the 
spiritual as well as in the physical realm. Retri- 
bution is as certain in its operation as gravita- 
tion. Indeed, it is gravitation in the moral 
world. Judas **went to his own place," not by 
any arbitrary appointment of God, but under 
the operation of the law of spiritual attraction. 
He was reaping, and is reaping, what he had 
sown. IvCt it be clearly understood that the uni- 
verse contains no heaven for the man who loves 
sin, and no hell for one who loves righteousness 
and hates iniquity. Character is destiny, and 
this universal law can not be evaded. 

Through the initiative which God in His 
mercy has taken to recover man from sin, by 
sending His Son into the world, the sinner may 

184 



Sin, Salvation, Retribution 

escape from his sins and so from the direful 
results of his sins. God's pardoning grace and 
renewing power become available to him who 
comes to Christ in faith and penitence, sur- 
rendering his life to His guidance, thus remov- 
ing the barriers which have hitherto hindered 
the soul's communion with God. Now, under 
the operation of the same law, he sows to the 
Spirit and will reap everlasting life. 

''May we close the door of hope to all who 
die impenitent?" It is not our prerogative, 
thank God, to close the door of hope to any 
soul. If God, in His infinite goodness, shall 
choose to give further opportunity beyond death 
for any soul to repent, who, for any reason, did 
not in this life yield to the tender pleadings of 
love, that would be cause for thanksgiving to 
Him, but it certainly would furnish no reason 
for less urgency on our part in calling men to 
repentance here. The writer, personally, has 
no doubt that God will meet any of His penitent 
children, at any time, in any world, with par- 
don; but the supreme danger lies in so harden- 
ing the heart by repeated refusals to accept 
the gospel that neither here nor there will 
repentance unto salvation be possible. There- 
fore those who promise salvation beyond death 

185 



Helps to Faith 

to those who refuse it in this world go beyond 
what is revealed. But so, also, do they who 
close the door of hope to all who pass from this 
world without having come to the knowledge of 
God and of salvation through Jesus Christ. Let 
us neither underestimate the power of sin nor 
put limits to the mercy of God. 

This view of sin, salvation and retribution 
removes all reasonable objections, and the Bible 
teaching on these subjects ceases to be an 
obstacle to faith. 



186 



V 

SCIENCE AND REVEI.ATION 

One fundamental misconception of the scope 
and intent of revelation has furnished occasion 
for a conflict which has lasted through cen- 
turies, and which has been variously designated 
as ^'Science versus Revelation," or *' Science 
versus Religion," or '^Genesis versus Geology." 
This misconception has been that the Bible, 
being an inspired volume, must necessarily 
give scientifically exact and accurate informa- 
tion on all subjects to which it directly or 
incidentally refers. Since the Book of Genesis 
deals with the subject of creation, there must 
be, of necessity, according to this view, exact 
harmony between the theory of cosmogony held 
by the writer of that book and the facts of 
science. Hence a great deal of time and labor 
has been expended in trying to harmonize 
Genesis and geology, and to show that the 
inspired writer had an up-to-date view of 
science. On the other hand skeptics, taking 
the same general view of what the Bible should 
be and teach, have tried to invalidate its claim 

187 



Helps to Faith 

to inspiration on the ground that some of its 
statements could not be harmonized with the 
conclusions of science. And so the war went 
on, and it is difficult to tell which side was the 
more dogmatic in urging its position, skeptical 
science or dogmatic theology. 

It is sad to think how much infidelity has 
grown out of this discussion and how blind even 
the ablest theologians seemed to be for a time 
to the true solution of the problem. All thinking 
men now understand that the Bible is a record 
of God's revelations to men concerning Himself, 
His character. His will, and His gracious pur- 
pose concerning man and the way of salvation 
from sin, and that it is not, and does not pretend 
to be, a book of science, whether of astronomy, 
geology, ethnology, or cosmogony. Whatever 
statements it may make on any of these subjects 
are incidental to its supreme purpose. God 
speaks to men both through nature and through 
inspired history, such as we have in the Bible. 
It is the duty of science to understand what 
God has said and is saying in nature, and it is 
the duty of theology to find out what God has 
said through holy men of old, and especially 
through Christ. Theologians are as much 
bound to accept the accredited truths of science 

188 



Science and Revelation 

as scientists are to accept tlie accredited truths of 
revelation. There can be no conflict, of course, 
between what God says in nature and in revela- 
tion. Science may misinterpret the one, as 
theology may the other, but this conflict does 
not arise from the facts of either, but from the 
misconceptions which have grown out of them. 
It is indeed one of the proofs of the inspira- 
tion of the author of Genesis that, in dealing 
with the problem of creation he steered clear of 
the prevalent polytheistic ideas and false con- 
ceptions of creation which prevailed among the 
religious of those early times. So intent was 
he on his theistic purpose of presenting God as 
the author of all things that he had no occa- 
sion to turn aside from this lofty purpose 
either to overthrow prevailing conceptions of 
cosmogony, or to enunciate a scientific theory 
which must either have been in harmony with 
the knowledge then prevalent or wholly unin- 
telligible. As a matter of fact he did neither, 
but was content to accomplish his own purpose 
in presenting God as the Creator of the heavens 
and the earth, and of all that is within them, 
including man as the climax of his creative 
work. Indeed nothing is more characteristic 
of the Bible than its wise silences concerning 

189 



Helps to Faith 

matters which do not bear directly or indirectly 
upon the great truths which it desires to incul- 
cate. Stated in their own language the purpose 
of the scriptures is as follows: *'The law of 
the lyord is perfect, restoring the soul" (Psa. 
19:7). '^These things are written that ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, 
and that believing ye may have life in His 
name'^ (John 20:31). *'Now these things were 
our examples to the intent we should not lust 
after evil things as they also lusted" (i Cor. 
10:6). *'And they were written for our admon- 
ition upon whom the ends of the ages are 
come" (i Cor. 10:11). "From a babe thou 
hast known the sacred writings which are able 
to make thee wise unto salvation through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus. Every scripture in- 
spired of God is also profitable for teaching, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction which is 
in righteousness; that the man of God may be 
complete, furnished completely unto every good 
work" (2 Tim. 3:14-17). 

Such is the Bible's account of its own pur- 
pose. Well would it have been for the Christian 
world if it had kept these passages in mind and 
had not attempted to make the Bible cover 
ground which it was never intended to cover. 

190 



Seience and Revelation 

There is no reason to doubt that the Christians 
of the first century shared fully the views of 
astronomy and of science generally, which 
prevailed at that time, and regarded the earth 
as the center of the solar system. If the Bible 
is to be regarded as a book of science as well as 
of religion, how shall this fact be accounted 
for? It was not by reading the Bible, but by 
reading the stars through a telescope, that the 
Ptolemaic theory of astronomy was overthrown 
and the Copernican theory established. So all 
the great scientific discoveries have been made 
by the study of nature, just as religious refor- 
mations have been brought about by fresh and 
original study of the Bible. It has been a great 
injustice to science that the Church, in past 
ages, has attempted to hold back its students 
from reaching conclusions which would be in 
supposed conflict with the Bible. Just as if 
anything in the Bible was worth preserving 
that could be overthrown by scientific discov- 
ery! It has been equally harmful to religion 
that both scientists and theologians have sought 
to stretch its authority over the domain of 
science. Happily for the Church a clearer 
view of the relation of science and revelation to 
each other, and of their respective fields, has 

191 



Helps to Faith 

taken the place, very largely, of the view just 
mentioned. We hear very little in these days 
about the conflict between Genesis and geology 
and between science and religion. Science has 
thrown new luster on theology and religion, 
and in turn religion has exercised, in these later 
years, a most favorable influence upon science, 
teaching it both reverence and humility. 

There are those who think that this view of 
the Bible lowers its value. Even if this were 
so we would be under obligation still to accept 
the truth. It is not true, however, that it low- 
ers the Bible. On the contrary it puts it on a 
pedestal where it is indeed supreme and without 
a rival. In the domain of morals and religion, 
which is by far the most important, having to 
do with questions of eternal moment, the Bible 
is without a peer. It is divinely adapted to 
meet the deepest needs of the human soul and 
to qualify men for living the truest and noblest 
lives. By its revelation of Christ it brings men 
into right relations with God, gives them a true 
conception of life and duty, develops the best 
there is in human nature, calls into activity all 
the latent powers of the mind as well as of the 
heart, and so helps the race onward in all that 
makes up a high and pure civilization. This 

IQZ 



Science and Revelation 

is why those countries in which the Bible 
freely circulates and is most studied and exer- 
cises the widest influence, excel other lands in 
science, in art, in industry, in commerce and 
in all that enriches and ennobles life. 

If the Bible writers had been inspired to give 
a scientifically correct account of the origin of 
the earth, and of its place in the material 
universe, and the law of development in plant 
and animal life, the Bible would have been dis- 
credited as a revelation of God and of the way 
of salvation because of its seemingly impossible 
scientific theories. Would it have been wise to 
have imperiled a revelation involving man's 
salvation in order to make known scientific 
theories for which the world was not prepared? 

There is no longer war between science and 
religion. Each bears its own torch and each is 
contributing its share toward helping the world 
on to a brighter future. The God of nature is 
also the God of revelation, and while science is 
explaining His handiwork in the vast material 
universe, religion and its revelation are unfold- 
ing the glory of His character, the munificence 
of His love and the transfiguring power of His 
truth and grace in a redeemed humanity. 

(13) 193 



VI 

REVKI.ATION PROGRESSIVE 

Perhaps no one view of the Bible has raised 
more intellectual and moral difficulties to its 
acceptance than that which regarded and treated 
the various parts of it from Genesis to Revela- 
tion as standing upon the same level and 
possessing the same degree of inspiration and 
authority. Holding this view of the Bible, 
preachers in days gone by, and perhaps even 
yet in some parts of the country, could take an 
obscure text in the Old Testament and read 
into it all the fullness of the revelation that 
came through Christ, or all the doctrinal specu- 
lations which have been based upon such revela- 
tion. With that conception of revelation, 
preachers are as likely to go to the Psalms or to 
Genesis to learn the terms of salvation under 
Christ as to the New Testament. They also 
feel under the same obligation to justify every 
utterance in the Old Testament as perfectly 
expressing the mind of God as they would in 
making such claim for any utterance of Christ 
or His apostles. Such a view ignores dispensa- 

194 



Revelation Progressive 

tional Hues, the time, place and authorship of 
the various books and the whole idea of a pro- 
o^ressive revelation. 

The author of the Hebrew letter, in the 
beginning of his great argument for the supe- 
riority of Christianity to Judaism, says: "God, 
having of old time spoken unto the fathers in 
the prophets by divers portions and in divers 
manners, hath at the end of these days spoken 
unto us in His Son." Here is a fundamental 
distinction which had come to be very largely 
overlooked until the religious reformers of the 
nineteenth century called attention to the dis- 
tinction between the Old Testament and the 
New Testament, the old dispensation and the 
new dispensation, the law given by Moses and 
the grace and truth given by Jesus Christ. This 
distinction has enabled these reformers to solve 
many of the problems which had hitherto 
stood in the way of a clear understanding of 
the Bible, and to have a much clearer apprecia- 
tion of the distinctive character of Christianity. 
The whole argument of this Hebrew letter is 
based on the assumption that God's revelation 
in His Son must, in the very nature of things, 
be superior to that which has been made unto 
the fathers in the prophets. If the reader will 

195 



Helps to Faith 

remember the point made in a previous chapter 
— tliat revelation is largely through life and 
character — it will be readily seen how it is that 
God has spoken his highest and best message 
in His Son, whose life and character were a 
perfect revelation of the Father. It is abso- 
lutely impossible to have an intelligent view of 
the book we call the Bible without bearing 
these facts in mind. 

How often do we meet with people who are 
troubled because of some statement in what are 
called the imprecatory Psalms, or in other parts 
of the Old Testament, recording acts of God's 
ancient people who claimed to be acting under 
the authority of God, which do not seem to 
them to breathe the spirit of the New Testa- 
ment. Of course they do not breathe the same 
spirit. Why should it be expected that the 
writers and the warriors of those ancient times, 
with their imperfect conceptions of God, and in 
the absence of that Christian culture which 
Christianity alone imparts, should manifest the 
pure and lofty spirit which breathes in the New 
Testament writings? Here, then, is the key 
that unlocks many of these hard problems: 
God could only reveal Himself to men as men 
were able to receive His revelation. He had to 

196 



Revelation Progressive 

deal with the race in its infancy as with chil- 
dren, giving them a few primary ideas and 
advancing to higher truths as they were able to 
receive them. ''Revelation was progressive, 
advancing from partial beginnings to the full- 
ness that appeared in Christ and was unfolded 
by the Spirit. Revelation was educational; 
that is to say, God was seeking actually to 
impart knowledge of Himself, so that men 
would possess it. Therefore revelation was, by 
necessity, progressive, as all educational proc- 
esses must be. Men had first to be taught 
almost as children, who must have training 
adapted to their state. God brought in higher 
truth as rapidly as man could learn to act upon 
it: in fact he was always in advance of man, 
and chargeable rather with haste than with 
needless delay. His prophets were always far 
ahead of the people whom they taught, and 
fresh messages always came in before the hear- 
ers had mastered the earlier ones, or were ready 
to turn the new ones into action. With eager- 
ness and with self-restraint, God was constantly 
pressing on to self-expression, regulating His 
movement according to the condition and 
capacity of men." 



* 



* Clarke's "Outline of Christian Theology," pp. 31, 32. 

in 



Helps to Faith 

Had this truth been sufficiently understood 
by the religious teachers of the past it would 
have saved many honest inquirers from stumb- 
ling into skepticism. By their false method of 
seeking to honor the Scriptures they dishonored 
Christ and placed insuperable obstacles in the 
way of faith to men of honest doubt. Some of 
the writers in the Old Testament reached the 
sublime heights of spiritual exaltation in which 
they saw and uttered truth for all time. Others 
wrote from a much lower plane and their inade- 
quate knowledge of God — inadequate for our 
day — is clearly manifest in the light of Christ's 
revelation. We must give the Bible its true 
perspective if we would appreciate its marvel- 
ous variety and understand the myriad voices 
by which it speaks to us. The indiscriminate 
way in which the Bible is quoted is illustrated 
in a current number of a popular magazine 
which begins an article with the statement: "It 
is a saying of inspired wisdom that *all that a 
man hath will he give for his life.'" — the 
words of Satan recorded in the book of Job! 
It it a bad use of the Bible to make it an 
authority for the truth of what Satan declared. 

It is not our purpose to apply this principle 
of progressive revelation to the solution of the 

198 



Revelation Progressive 

numerous problems which have arisen out of 
the Old Testament, but having stated the prin- 
ciple, it is better to leave each reader to apply 
it for himself when he meets with the difficulty 
which requires its application. We are sure, 
however, that the Bible will become a much 
more interesting and intelligible book when we 
read it in the light of this truth, and its appeal 
to our faith becomes all the more irresistible. 
Some have likened revelation to a stream which 
begins in a small rivulet, increasing in volume 
as it moves forward until it becomes a mighty 
river floating the commerce of a continent. 
Others have called the patriarchal, Jewish and 
Christian dispensations, with their respective 
revelations, the starlight, moonlight and sun- 
light periods of the world. Both these figures 
imply the truth we are here insisting on, that 
revelation has been progressive, reaching its 
sublime culmination in Jesus Christ, and that 
He is therefore the supreme arbiter of all ques- 
tions pertaining to the will and character of 
God, and whatever will not stand the test of the 
mind of Christ must be reckoned as imperfect. 
Every utterance of psalmist, prophet or law- 
giver of the Old Testament must be submitted 
to the mind of Christ as the determinative 

199 



Helps to Faith 

factor in all questions of morals and religion. 
Nothing less than this is Christianity pure and 
simple. 

The church has been slow in learning the 
lesson taught on the Mount of Transfiguration. 
The presence of Moses and Elijah, law-giver 
and prophet of ancient Israel, who laid their 
legal and prophetic honors at the feet of the 
divine Prophet and I^awgiver, only symbolized 
what the voice of God declared from *'the 
excellent glory." *'This is my beloved Son: 
hear ye him." It was the revelation, in most 
sublime imagery, of the great truth, that the 
Son of God transcends, by his wisdom and 
authority, all previous messengers of God, and 
is the World's Supreme Teacher and Spiritual 
Irawgiver. 



200 



VII 

ABUSE OF AUTHORITY IN RKIvIGION 

Onk of the striking features of modern times 
is the growth of the feeling of personal freedom 
and the disposition to rebel against any form of 
government that is imposed from above and 
does not originate within the people. This is 
characteristic not of our own country alone, 
but of all civilized lands. Democracy in gov- 
ernment, which means that the government 
must originate with the people and not come 
down from a king or an aristocracy, has made 
wonderful strides in modern times. Science, 
too, has contributed its share toward breaking 
the shackles of authority, and fostering the 
sense of individual freedom. 

It is not strange, therefore, that there is a 
disposition, widespread in these modern times, 
against authority in religion in the form in 
which it has usually been presented to men. In 
his recent work on "The Religion of a Mature 
Mind," George Albert Coe, speaking of the 
freedom which prevails elsewhere, says: 
' 'Rightly or wrongly, there is a somewhat gen- 

201 



Helps to Faith 

eral feeling among intelligent men that Chris- 
tianity, at least in its official garb, grants no 
corresponding freedom. In the other factors of 
civilization the individual is a source, but in 
religion he feels that he is required to be a 
mere point of application for something that 
takes its start outside him. He has no initia- 
tive, he can only comply. If he ventures to 
think outside the limits which he believes are 
set for him by the Church, he suffers a sense of 
alienation from his fellows, and feels that he 
must classify himself with heretics and unbe- 
lievers. Men are assuming, for apparently 
trivial causes, that they are Ishmaelites in 
religious thought, and the reason of it, at least 
in part, is the astonishing ease with which 
many persons, under the impression that they 
are keeping the faith, treat as an enemy any 
individual who wanders from the herd.'' (Pp. 

74, 75)- 

No matter where we lay the blame for this 

feeling, no true observer of the times will deny 
that it is widespread and that it is growing 
rather than waning. It has come to be a seri- 
ous obstacle to faith with many, and the subject 
deserves the careful and candid consideration of 
those who believe in Christ and are seeking to 

202 



Abuse of Authority in Religion 

make his religion universal. How shall we 
deal with the problem? We know how Roman 
Catholicism deals with it, by presenting the 
authority of an infallible Church and an infalli- 
ble pope, beyond which there is no appeal. 
We know how the early reformers of the six- 
teenth century undertook to solve the problem, 
by presenting the authority of an infallible book 
against that of an infallible Church. We know, 
too, how soon this appeal to an infallible book 
very naturally assumed the form of authorita- 
tive creeds formulated by fallible men and made 
the criteria and the bases of Christian fellow- 
ship. By this process divine authority came 
to be mere ecclesiastical authority which, how- 
ever, was imposed upon the consciences of men 
as if it were the authority of God, pure and 
simple. 

What we mean, therefore, by the abuse of 
authority in religion, is the attempt on the part 
of men to formulate a theological system from 
the Bible, and to impose that system upon the 
consciences of men as authoritative. We may 
have the same abuse of authority, in kind, by 
an unwritten creed or set of doctrines which 
are made tests of fellowship on the plea that 
they are of divine authority. There is no dis- 

203 



Helps to Faith 

tinction, in principle, between a written and an 
unwritten human creed, when they are alike 
regarded as of divine authority and are made 
tests of fellowship. There will always be per- 
sons who, ^ 'under the impression that they are 
keeping the faith," will ''treat as an enemy 
any individual who wanders from the herd," or 
dares to hold an opinion on any religious sub- 
ject different from that entertained by the great 
majority of his brethren. These, whether con- 
tending for articles of a written or an unwritten 
creed, are presenting serious obstacles to faith 
and to the progress of Christianity. 

What shall we say, then? Is there no author- 
ity in religion? Most certainly there is. It 
was characteristic of Jesus' teaching that "he 
spake as one having authority and not as the 
scribes." But Jesus spake with the authority 
of truth, and not with the authority of the 
Sanhedrin or of any ecclesiastical deliverance. 
He appealed to the moral nature of man, and 
the moral nature in man has always recognized 
the authority of his teaching whether it obeyed 
it or not. To quote again from Mr. Coe's work, 
referred to above: "According to this view, 
the Christ comes to me not as restraint, but as 
reinforcement of the inner liberty that marks 

204 



Abuse of Authority in Religion 

the modern spirit. He asks me to accept noth- 
ing but what is approved by my present self. 
The acts that he commands can be seen to be 
required by my own moral standard. The doc- 
trines that he expects me to believe can be 
reached by orderly procedure from what I 
already admit to be true. At no point does he 
require a break with what I am willing to own 
as my real self. Somewhere in my interviews 
with him I may discover that I have played the 
fool by taking for my real self some caricature 
of it, but yet, at whatever level of foolishness 
he finds me, he proceeds by unfolding some- 
thing that is already there." (Pp. "]"] ^ 78). 

It is not authority in religion that people 
object to. More, rather than less, authority 
should characterize the utterances of the modern 
pulpit. The man who speaks God's message 
to the human heart and conscience can speak 
with the authority of God, and the people do 
not object to this. They are quick enough to 
discern whether a preacher is speaking the 
truth of God or uttering speculative opinions of 
his own. There is that in man which recog- 
nizes the truth which finds him in the depths 
of his nature. The preacher who voices this 
truth may speak as one having authority and 

205 " 



Helps to Faith 

not as the scribes. As has been well said, 
*' there has been too much effort to coerce men 
by what they feel to be foreign to themselves; 
. too little of the imperative of con- 
science, and too little direct appeal to the instinc- 
tive needs of humanity. We have had too much 
compulsion and not enough impulsion.^' Nor 
does this apply, simply, to what may be called 
the moral teaching and the moral requirements 
of Christ. Every command which is clearly 
traceable to his authority will instantly impress 
itself on every obedient spirit that is seeking to 
do his will. Every such command, however, 
has its justification in the needs of human 
nature and its adaptation to such needs. Not 
one of them rests upon mere arbitrary authority. 
What is really demanded, then, by the spirit 
of the times in which we live, is a change in 
the kind of authority which has been used 
in religion. Instead of the authority of the 
Church, or of human interpretations of the 
Bible, called creeds, which has been imposed 
upon men from without as external authority, 
there must be a return to Christ's method, 
which was to appeal to that which is within 
men and which they can not but approve by the 
very law of their being, and which thus certifies 

206 



Abuse of Authority in Religion 

itself as truth and therefore of God. This will 
remove human creeds out of the realm of 
authority, except in so far as the truth which 
they contain will commend itself to every man's 
conscience in the sight of God, will exalt Christ 
to His proper place as the source of authority 
because He is the embodiment of truth, and 
will open the way for many who have been 
kept out of the kingdom of God by dogmatism 
to enter in and become loyal and free disciples 
of Christ. 

This change is now going on, and there is 
danger that, in throwing off the external 
authority of creeds and ecclesiasticisms, many 
may fail to recognize the real authority which 
resides in Christ, and in the truth, and which 
is not only consonant with human freedom, but 
which is essential to its full realization. It is 
this fact which places such grave responsibility 
upon the pulpit and religious press of to-day, 
and upon all whose duty is to teach the things 
of the kingdom of God. Not to know the age 
in which we live, not to understand the deepest 
currents of thought, along which the Spirit of 
God is moving, is the very sin for which Jesus 
rebuked the religious people of His time. Not 
to recognize the change which has come over 

207 



Helps to Faith 

the modern world as respects authority in 
religion is to fail in making effective any mes- 
sage we may have for it. 

This modern view as respects authority in 
relation to one's life is well expressed by a 
modern author: "All life must have its law, 
the life of man so much the more than that of 
inferior beings, in that it is more precious and 
of nicer adjustment. This law for man is in 
the first place an external law, but it may 
become an internal law. When man has once 
recognized the inner law, and bowed before it, 
through this reverence and voluntary submis- 
sion, he is ripe for liberty: so long as there is no 
vigorous and sovereign inner law, he is incap- 
able of breathing its air; for he will be drunken 
with it, maddened, morally slain. The man 
who guides his life by inner law, can no more 
live servile to outward authority than can the 
full-grown bird live imprisoned in the egg- 
shell."* 



* "The Simple Life." By Charles Wagner, p. 11. 



208 



VIII 

CONVERSION—THE OLD DOCTRINE 
AND THE NEW I.IGHT 

Any one who has had considerable experi- 
ence in personal religious work knows that the 
popular and once universal conception of con- 
version has become a most serious obstacle in 
the way of many honest inquirers after the way 
of life and salvation. The word conversion is 
used here to mean the turning of man from the 
practice and power of sin to the love and serv- 
ice of God. It denotes that radical change in 
human life by which its energies, aspirations 
and efforts are turned into new channels; that 
is, from being directed to worldly and selfish 
ends, to spiritual and unselfish aims. 

We speak of this change as radical because it 
has to do with the deepest and most controlling 
motives of human life. But of course the 
change is not equally radical in different classes 
of individuals. The conversion of the child, 
for instance, is attended by no such sudden 
revulsion in feeling and conduct as in the case 
of an adult, and even the conversion of adults 

(14) 209 



Helps to Faith 

differs according to their temperament and their 
moral condition in life. It is not so much with 
the fact of conversion itself, as with the method 
by which it is brought about, that the difficulty 
has arisen which has become an obstacle to 
faith. 

According to a view once almost universally 
prevalent, and even now by no means obsolete, 
man is wholly passive in the matter of his con- 
version. His moral condition is such, according 
to the theology of which this view is a part, 
that he could not be otherwise. Being totally 
depraved in mind and heart and will, he is 
unable to think a good thought, to love what is 
pure and good, or to perform a good deed. The 
appeal which the gospel makes to men c^n 
have no force whatever with them until they 
are regenerated directly by the impact of the 
Holy Spirit upon their spirits, thus enabling 
them to repent, believe and obey. When in 
* 'God's good time'' He saw proper to convert a 
sinner He would do so without consulting him 
and wholly independent of his agency. Any 
one who takes the pains to investigate the sub- 
ject will be surprised to find that this view of 
conversion is entertained yet by many people. 



210 



Conversion 

having survived the theological system of which 
it is a part. 

It is easy to see, however, that the growth of 
the scientific spirit, which is doing so much to 
clarify thought in every other department of 
life, and especially the increasing interest in 
psychology, would lead to an irrepressible con- 
flict wnth the theory to which we have referred. 
To a certain class of minds it never was satis- 
factory, and it was an insuperable obstacle to 
their making any profession of religion or com- 
ing into the church. They made a mental 
protest against a theory of conversion which 
leads men into a fog-bank and leaves them 
there without showing them any certain steps 
by which they may come into the light of truth 
and into the peace of certainty. As men come 
to better understand the laws which govern 
man's moral and intellectual nature, they are 
asking themselves the question, why, in the 
most serious concern of man's life — his conver- 
sion from sin to righteousness — God does not 
proceed, as He does everywhere else, in har- 
mony with the nature of the being with whom 
he is dealing. Has God given to man a will? 
Then He will respect that will. Has He so 
constituted man, morally and intellectually, 

211 



Helps to Faith 

that the truth is adapted to the mind as light is 
to the eye or sound to the ear? If so, then He 
will use truth to enlighten men's understanding 
and will appeal to their reason and to their 
higher nature with motives adapted thereto. 
In other words, if God has created man a free 
moral agent He will not violate that freedom or 
override his will by His omnipotence, but will 
seek to win him from his evil ways through the 
very laws of his being, and not in violation of 
these laws. 

It is admitted by all that faith is an essential 
condition of man's salvation. The power to 
believe, or the faith-faculty, is a part of the 
common human inheritance. But how is faith 
in God as Father and in Jesus Christ as Savior 
and lyord to be cultivated in the heart of men 
and brought to the point of loving obedience? 
The newer view of conversion recognizes the 
necessity of the gospel of Christ to accomplish 
that work, seeing that it is divinely adapted to 
that end. The relation between cause and 
effect here is not beyond the reach of man to 
discern. *'The gospel is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that believeth," 
because faith is the channel throusrh which the 
great realities of the gospel come into the 

212 



Conversion 

human soul as regenerative and controlling 
forces of life. Repentance, which is a change 
of mind or purpose, comes from this new vision 
of unseen realities, and especially from the 
vision of Christ as he is presented to us in the 
gospel. Why pursue the old way leading unto 
death, when faith points out a new way leading 
unto life? Obedience to this divine Lord in- 
stead of disobedience naturally follows, and 
thus man's adjustment to God and his conse- 
quent forgiveness of sins and peace of mind, 
and his reception of the Holy Spirit, are all 
brought within the range, and come about under 
the operation, of the laws which govern man's 
nature. 

This is not to say, of course, that there is no 
mystery in the process of imparting the new 
life. Ivife is always mysterious. Science with 
all its advancement has only deepened its 
mysteries. But the mystery is on God's side, 
and in His work, and does not pertain to man's 
duty. Every step which man is required to 
take to bring him into reconciliation with God, 
and into the enjoyment of life eternal, is clearly 
marked out, and is based upon reasons which 
commend themselves to our human judgment. 
The farmer does not have to understand the 

213 



Helps to Faith 

mysterious laws which govern vegetable life 
and growth in order to raise bountiful crops. 
He only needs to know what are the conditions 
which he must fulfill in the preparation of soil, 
in the planting of proper seed, and in the culti- 
vation of the ground, in order to secure the 
desired harvest. He does his part and trusts to 
God to do the rest. In like manner men may 
understand the human conditions of salvation 
and conform to them and receive the blessing 
attached thereto, without being able to solve 
all the mysteries of God's operations in the 
realm of the spirit, or the manner in which the 
truth of God is transmuted through faith into 
life and character. 

It has been a mistake of theology in the past 
to attempt to solve the problems which relate 
to God's being and the methods of His opera- 
tion which lie beyond the reach of the finite, 
and to enshroud in impenetrable mystery the 
process of man's conversion on the human side, 
which should be as clear as a sunbeam. The 
scientific spirit of the age demands that these 
crude and superstitious views of conversion 
which have prevailed in the past, and the meth- 
ods which grew out of those views, be laid 
aside for a more rational as well as a more 

214 



Conversion 

scriptural view of conversion and of tlie proper 
methods of bringing it about. It will be found 
on examination that the New Testament method 
of procedure in the matter of conversion con- 
forms to the latest psychology and the most 
scientific thought. This is not because the 
apostles and first preachers were scientists or 
psychologists, but because, under the guidance 
of the Spirit, they followed the simple and 
natural order of reaching the human mind and 
heart, and had no theories touching the divine 
method of operation to defend or propagate. 

It remains to be said that these observations 
relate mainly to the matter of the conversion 
of responsible adults. That there is a prepara- 
tory work that goes on in the child-mind and 
heart beneath the power of human observation 
and human analysis, will not be denied by any 
one who has thoughtfully considered the sub- 
ject. The silent and unseen forces of parental 
and home influence, the unnoted but potent 
power of school life, early companionships, 
books, observation and quiet reflection, through 
all of which, we can not doubt, the Spirit of 
God is working to mold and fashion the young 
life — all these lie within a realm which has 
been too little considered and understood, but 

215 



Helps to Faith 

which, after all our study and investigation, 
possesses elements of power and results which 
will elude the keenest observation. We may 
be sure, however, that within this realm, as 
well as in others, God works according to the 
laws of our being, and that it is within our 
power to surround infancy and childhood with 
such an atmosphere aud such influences as will 
tend to bring it into line with God's purpose 
and will, with little or nothing of that change 
in the current and tendency of one's life which 
accompanies adult conversion. 



216 



IX 
A DIVIDED CHURCH 

ThkrB can be no doubt that a subtle and 
widespread influence against the acceptance of 
Christianity has gone forth from the divided 
condition of the Christian world. The objec- 
tion may not often voice itself in definite terms, 
and yet whoever questions closely that large 
class of moral, well-disposed people who are 
not church members, will find, prominent 
among the reasons which have prevented them 
from making an open confession of Christ, this 
divided state of the Church. Perhaps they 
have intimate friends who are in different re- 
ligious bodies, or even the family may be 
divided by ecclesiastical lines, and they hesitate 
to take an overt step in religion that would 
seem to put a barrier between them and those 
they love. 

Then again the very fact of these existing 
creeds of diverse doctrines has engendered a 
doubt, in many minds, as to whether there is 
any certainty upon which they can build for 
eternity. They feel that where learned men 

217 



Helps to Faith 

and able theologians differ, they may all be 
wrong, and in this unsettled state of mind they 
naturally postpone any decisive action of a 
religious character. These men ask themselves, 
if they do not ask others, why, if the way of 
Christianity be so simple and plain that *^the 
wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err therein," 
as the Bible declares, there are so many differ- 
ent denominations with differing views expressed 
in conflicting creeds, and directing their ener- 
gies often against each other, rather than 
against a common foe? When the advocates 
of Christianity are considering the causes which 
are keeping so many people out of the church 
and away from its public services, they ought 
not to overlook this obstacle, which has proven 
to be a serious barrier in the way of many. 

There are a few things which may be said by 
way of removing this obstacle out of the way of 
honest inquirers after the truth. One must 
study the history of the Church and the causes 
which gave rise to denominationalism, to un- 
derstand why we have these existing divisions 
in the Church, and that he may not attach 
undue blame to those who have inherited from 
the past these denominational peculiarities and 
distinctions. He must follow the Church in its 

218 



A Divided Church 

great apostasy until it became a tremendous 
spiritual despotism, setting aside the ordinances 
of the gospel and the plain teaching of Christ, 
and instituting dogmas and practices of its own 
devising, until its corruptions and abuses cried 
to heaven for reform. He must then mark the 
rise of the Protestant reformation of the six- 
teenth century, and how, out of this emancipa- 
tion from the tyranny of Rome, there sprang, 
one after another, the great Protestant religious 
reformations, each of which was an effort to 
restore some neglected feature or features of the 
original Church, or to get nearer to the divine 
ideal. 

It is easy enough for us who live in the light of 
all the accumulated experience of the past to 
see the mistakes which were made by these 
reformers, and to point out a way by which 
they might have maintained unity among them- 
selves, while enjoying their newly-found free- 
dom in Christ. But it is unfair to judge the 
reformers of past centuries by the light which 
shines upon us to-day, for much of which we 
are indebted to the experiences of these men of 
God, who were loyal to the truth as they were 
enabled to see the truth. It should always be 
remembered, in judging these denominations, 

219 



Helps to Faith 

that they are efforts, as Isaac Krrett once said, 
to get away from Rome and not to return to 
Rome. Denominationalism, therefore, in so 
far as it involves division walls consisting of 
unauthorized tests of fellowship, is an imperfect 
and therefore temporary phase of Church life; 
but it is not conscious and intentional rejection 
of the authority of Christ and the substitution, 
in its place, of human authority. This much 
is due, in the way of fairness and justice, and 
to the truth of history concerning the present 
denominational state of the Church. 

It does not follow, of course, from what we 
have said, that Protestantism ought not to out- 
grow its divided condition as it comes into the 
clearer light of truth and into a larger appre- 
hension of Christ's aim in the establishment of 
his Church. It should be said, also, that growth 
in the direction of unity, and away from the 
denominational narrowness and bitterness of the 
past, has been most decided and gratifying dur- 
ing the last quarter of a century. The friends 
of Christian unity who believe that it can be 
realized only as the denominations exchange 
their doctrinal bases of fellowship for the per- 
sonal Christ, the original and unchangeable 
creed of Christianity, have great reason to 

220 



A Divided Church 

rejoice at the progress which has been made in 
this direction. We must not expect too much 
of human nature. It must be with the coming 
of Christian unity, as with the kingdom of God 
itself, * 'first the blade, then the ear, and after 
that the full corn in the ear.'' It can only 
come by growth, and whatever tends to enhance 
the spiritual life of the Church tends to hasten 
the day when Christ's followers shall be one, 
even as He prayed that they might be one. The 
growing disposition among these different re- 
ligious bodies to co-operate for the furtherance 
of common ends is proof that the Spirit of God 
is moving among them to bring about, in due 
time, such unification as will exalt Christ, 
glorify God, and result in the conversion of 
the world. 

Meantime, what course is there left for those 
who are willing to become Christians, but who 
do not see their way to accept any of the 
denominational forms or creedal statements of 
Christianity? To such it ought to be enough 
to say. You may become disciples of our lyord 
Jesus Christ, taking His yoke upon you and 
learning of Him, without encumbering your- 
selves with any human accretions which have 
gathered about the religion of Christ in its 

221 



Helps to Faith 

passage through the centuries. There is a 
common creed which all Christians accept. 
Faith in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God and the 
Savior of the world, is the creed that underlies 
every evangelical Church in Christendom, and 
is the inspiration and basis of all Christian life 
and activity. Accept that and the religious 
world will not call in question the orthodoxy of 
your creed. If you obey him in that *'one 
baptism'* which symbolizes his burial and 
resurrection (Rom. 6:4), and rise from it to 
walk in newness of life, no religious body in 
Christendom will call in question the validity of 
your baptism. If you manifest the spirit of 
Jesus Christ in your daily life, seeking to follow 
his example and to please him in all things, no 
Church in Christendom will call in question 
your Christian character. If you object to 
wearing party names, whether of men, or of 
religious ordinances, or of forms of govern- 
ment, it is your privilege to wear only those 
scriptural names which are applicable to all the 
children of God, and which are esteemed and 
honored by all who revere the name of Christ. 
If you object to the acceptance of any human 
book of discipline as binding upon your con- 
science, and as an authoritative guide, you may 

222 



A Divided Church 

take the New Testament alone as your rule of 
faith and practice, and no body of Christians in 
all the world will call its authority in question. 
What we mean to say, then, is that, in spite 
of all our denominationalism, there is a common 
Christianity to which all are gradually coming, 
and which anyone to-day may accept at once, 
standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
hath made him free, on a broad and unchal- 
lenged foundation where he may have fellow- 
ship with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and where he may be free to receive all the 
truth which God may have shown him in nature 
or in revelation. To this common Christianity 
all may come to whom the divisions, creeds, 
party names and party spirit are an offense, 
and who are content to be free and untrammeled 
disciples of Jesus Christ, wearing his name, 
'imbibing his spirit and seeking to be trans- 
formed into his likeness. It is this common 
Christianity which is receiving emphasis to- 
day, while denominational peculiarities are 
being remanded to a subordinate place. If this 
process continues denominationalism will be re- 
duced to a point where it will cease to divide, 
and will therefore cease to be an obstacle to 
faith, and to the conversion of the world. 

223 



X 

MORAL DELINQUENCIES 

It may be safely asserted that the average 
church member has no adequate conception of 
the influence which his life exerts either for or 
against the Christianity which he professes. If 
professed Christians knew that the salvation of 
many of those with whom they associate de- 
pends on their character and conduct, and had 
any just realization of the responsibility which 
this fact imposes upon them, it would hardly 
be possible for them to live the kind of life 
which many of them do. When men of the 
world see that the professing Christians with 
whom they do business carry no more con- 
science with them into their business dealings 
than they themselves do, and indulge quite as 
freely, and sometimes more so, in doubtful 
methods of gain, the inevitable effect is to raise 
a question in their minds as to the practical 
value of Christianity and its power to mold 
human life and character according to higher 
ideals. 

It can not be doubted that the greatest nega- 

224 



Moral Delinquencies 

tive force in the world to-day working against 
the progress of Christianity is the failure of 
those who profess to follow Christ to be gov- 
erned by his teaching and example. The great- 
est evangelistic force in the world is the silent, 
outraying influence of Christian lives, and this 
force could be indefinitely multiplied if all who 
confess the name of Christ would manifest his 
spirit in all the relations of life. This is what 
Jesus meant when he said to his disciples, 
*'Ivet your light so shine before men, that they 
may see your good works, and glorify your 
Father which is in heaven.'* This is what he 
meant by saying to his disciples, **Ye are the 
salt of the earth;" *'Ye are the light of the 
world." It is clear from these statements that 
he was not relying alone upon the public procla- 
mation of the gospel by chosen ministers to 
convert the world, but that he expected this 
preaching to be mightily reinforced by the 
pure characters, the good works, the noble and 
unselfish lives, of all believers. We do not 
need better preaching so much as we need bet- 
ter living; not greater sermons so much as 
greater and holier deeds done in the name of 
Christ. Heresies in doctrine are not so mis- 

(15) 225 



Helps to Faith 

chievous in their results as heresies in life and 
conduct. 

But we come now to deal with these moral 
delinquencies considered from the point of view 
of those who, while troubled by them, are 
nevertheless anxious concerning their own moral 
welfare, and who would gladly accept Christ if 
they felt assured that they could find in him 
the help which they need, not only to escape 
the sins of the past, but to live purer and better 
lives in the future. To all such persons it 
ought to be sufficient to say, that neither Christ 
nor his religion can be held responsible for the 
failures in the lives of men who merely profess 
his name, but who do not really trust him nor 
live in personal union and fellowship with him. 
No one attaches any blame to the physician for 
not curing the patient who does not follow his 
prescription and submit himself fully to his 
care. In the very nature of the case no one 
can share in the life of Christ — the life which 
he came to impart to men — without coming 
into and maintaining union with him. Every 
man's own conscience tells him that in so far as 
his Christian life has been a failure it has not 
been because of Christ's inability to keep him 
in the way of righteousness, but because of his 

226 



Moral Delinquencies 

own unwillingness to commit himself fully to 
Christ's way. 

Besides that, the correct way of ascertaining 
whether there is any reality in the alleged 
power of Christ to purify the life and strengthen 
the character, delivering the soul from the 
power of sin and making it to rejoice in a new- 
found liberty, is not to inquire how many pro- 
fessed Christians have failed to realize these 
results in their lives, but whether any have 
reali2edi\i^vii. One indisputable case of a per- 
son who has been transformed by the power of 
the gospel of Christ from a life of sin and 
wretchedness to a life of righteousness and of 
joyful service to God and humanity, is an un- 
answerable argument, showing the reality of 
Christ's power and its availability for human 
use. But when you multiply one such instance 
by many millions, the proof becomes irresisti- 
ble to an honest mind, that is simply seeking to 
know whether or not God has really placed 
salvation from sin within the reach of men. 
Every one who will take pains to inquire can 
find numerous instances of both men and women 
whose lives have been literally transformed, and 
who attribute this change in their lives to their 



227 



Helps to Faith 

faitli in Christ and the submission of their lives 
to him. 

If one fails to feel the force of this argument 
he may be sure that the fault lies within him- 
self. It ought to be more generally understood 
than it is, by men who claim that it is difficult 
for them to believe in God, in Christ, in the 
gospel, in the reality of the spiritual world, 
and immortality, that moral delinquencies in 
one's own life are the most universal source of 
skepticism. This matter has already been ad- 
verted to in another place, but we refer to it 
again here because it has a very vital connection 
with the topic under consideration. If one be 
false to the light which he already possesses, if 
he be disloyal to his convictions of truth and 
duty, his spiritual nature is in no condition for 
the reception of further truth or for the increase 
of his faith. The best possible rule for every 
one troubled with unbelief is to make an earnest 
effort to live as nearly right as he knows how, 
and in this struggle to live up to his highest 
ethical standard, his soul comes into a sympa- 
thetic attitude toward Christ, and he will soon 
be prepared to accept his teaching and then to 
accept him personally, as the very Friend and 



228 



Moral Delinquencies 

Helper he needs to enable him to live the truest 
and best life. 

Not only is it true that many are hindered 
from coming to a robust and joyous faith be- 
cause of their moral delinquencies, but it is also 
true that many believers, by reason of their 
failure to be loyal to their faith, become skep- 
tical. That is a significant statement of Paul 
in his letter to Timothy (1:19) where he says, 
''War the good warfare; holding faith and a good 
conscience; which some having thrust from 
them made shipwreck concerning the faith." 
Notice the intimate relation between "faith and 
a good conscience." The "some" referred to, 
including Hymenaeus and Alexander, thrust 
from them "a good conscience" and then soon 
"made shipwreck concerning the faith." It is 
not difficult to see how this works. Every man 
seeks, naturally, to have some sort of harmony 
between what he believes and what he lives. 
If he is unwilling to bring his life up to his 
faith, then he seeks to bring his faith down to 
his life. In other words, he seeks self-justifica- 
tion for his conduct by denying the reality of 
those facts and truths which would require a 
different kind of conduct. Every man, therefore, 
who is really in quest of faith, or who desires 

229 



Helps to Faith 

to keep the faith which he has, and to enlarge 
it, should look well to the secret spring of all 
his actions — the heart. If purity of thought 
and desire, and sincerity, abide there, and if 
there be an earnest effort to be true to what is 
truest and best within him, faith in Christ will 
come, and when it does come it will abide, and 
grow stronger and clearer until the light of the 
perfect day. 

No amount of moral delinquencies in the 
lives of other men, without or within the 
Church, will prove an insuperable obstacle to 
faith to one who, recognizing his own moral 
deficiency, seeks to remedy it by conforming to 
the highest ideal, and who at last finds that 
ideal in Jesus Christ. Yielding himself in lov- 
ing obedience to the personal Christ, he realizes 
that emancipation from the thraldom of sin for 
which his soul had longed, and there opens up 
before him such a vision of progress in right- 
eousness and in truth as fills his soul with an 
unutterable joy, and gives to human life a mean- 
ing and a dignity of which he had not dreamed 
in the days before he had seen Christ and had 
learned of him. As he looks back now from 
the height to which he has attained, by the 
grace of God, he sees that the beginning of his 

230 



Moral Delinquencies 

salvation was in his purpose to be true to the 
light that was in him, until that light led him 
to the feet of him who is ^'the light of the 
world." 



231 



XI 



THE SIvOW PROGRESS OF THE 
KINGDOM OF GOD 

Attention has already been given to the 
evils within the Church, both collectively as 
to its divisions, differing creeds, etc., and the 
moral delinquencies of its individual members, 
considered as obstacles to faith. Another diffi- 
culty in the way of faith is the prevalence of 
sin and crime in the world, and the reign of 
unrighteousness, after nineteen centuries of 
Christian history. There are those who ask 
with honest doubt, perhaps, why it is, if Chris- 
tianity has a divine Founder who established 
his kingdom on the earth at the beginning of 
the Christian era, that it has not made more 
progress in the world than it has during all the 
centuries of its existence. They point to war 
between nations, with all its direful conse- 
quences, to the existence of governments which 
oppress their subjects and deprive them of their 
just rights, to peoples and tribes who yet prac- 
tice idolatry and grovel in the lowest and vilest 
superstitions, to nations where womanhood is 

232 



The Slow Progress of the Kingdom 

dishonored, childhood neglected and the poor 
and helpless uncared for, to the prevalence, 
even within Christian nations, of murder, thiev- 
ing, robbery, lust and other crimes and vices, 
the municipal corruption which prevails in our 
large cities, the slum districts where squalor, 
ignorance and vice hold their carnival, to the 
legalized liquor traffic with all its baneful influ- 
ences, to the inordinate greed for gain, which 
seems to dominate the commercial world, and 
ask, if the kingdom of God means the abolish- 
ment of all these evils, why do they flourish in 
the land nineteen hundred years after the birth 
of him who inaugurated a new era and estab- 
lished a kingdom of truth and righteousness? 

Such is the difficulty as it looms up in the 
minds of some, while others, still more pessi- 
mistic in their mood, claim that the world is 
growing worse instead of better, which, of 
course, implies that Christianity is a failure, 
and that the kingdom of God is not able to 
cope with the kingdom of darkness. There is 
little use to argue with pessimism, which is a 
mental or moral infirmity, but there is some- 
thing to be said to those who see, in the present 
moral condition of the world, an obstacle to 
honest faith. If one wishes to really know 

233 



/ 



Helps to Faith 

whether the kingdom of God is making any 
progress in the world, he must not form his 
conclusion on short views, either in time or 
space. It may be that in a given community, 
within a limited space of time, there may be 
retrogression in morals and religion; but when 
one takes in long periods of time and a wider 
area, it is not difficult to see that the kingdom 
is making substantial progress. I^et any one, 
for instance, compare the condition of the world 
as it was at the time of the birth of Christ with 
its present condition. Let him note the low 
standard of morals which prevailed at that 
time, as depicted by Paul in the Roman letter, 
or as described in such works as "Ben Hur" or 
*^Quo Vadis" or as revealed in the ruins of 
Pompeii and Herculaneum. I^et him consider 
the condition of womanhood, of childhood, the 
number of slaves and their legal status, the 
cruelty of the people, as manifested in their 
amusements and in their wars, the utter prosti- 
tution of religion to serve the baser passions of 
men, and the feeling of despair which was tak- 
ing possession of men's hearts as they witnessed 
the steady downward tendency of things, and 
then contrast that with our present civilization, 
with whatever faults it possesses, and if he 

234 



The Slow Progress of the Kingdom 

does not see that the kingdom of God has made 
splendid progress, it must be because his own 
moral vision is obscured. 

Then the kingdom of God was represented 
by its Founder, and a few disciples that were 
gathered about him, who imperfectly under- 
•stood him and his mission, in the midst of the 
great pagan world and the vast Roman empire 
in which were intrenched all these evils. Note 
how that little company of disciples has swelled 
into a mighty host which no man can number; 
how that Galilean Carpenter, "despised and 
rejected of men," has marched through the 
centuries, a conquering Hero, winning ever- 
more a larger dominion over men, extending 
his influence over a wider domain of human 
life, molding laws, institutions and govern- 
ments into higher and better forms, and build- 
ing a new civilization, until he is to-day, 
beyond all comparison, the most potential factor 
in human history, and rising, year by year, 
toward the zenith of his power. While the 
Roman empire, then mistress of the world, 
with her tyranny, cruelty and idolatry, has 
long since passed away, the kingdom of Jesus 
Christ stretches over a wider domain now than 
ever before, and its influence was never so potent 

235 



Helps to Faith 

over the life of mankind as it is to-day. 

It should be remembered, too, that the king- 
dom of God has made this progress under 
difficulties and against obstacles which would 
have proved insuperable to any cause less 
divine. It had scarcely gotten out of the swad- 
dling bands of its Judaistic environment, when- 
it fell into the hands of Greek philosophy, and 
underwent a process of speculative analysis and 
of scholastic theologizing, until its simplicity 
and power must have been lost very largely to 
the common people. A little later Roman 
scholastics and theologians began to organize it 
after the manner of the Roman empire, until 
they had built up the greatest religious despot- 
ism which the world has ever known. Through 
long centuries Christianity had to do its work 
upon human life, through this speculative 
theology and ecclesiastical tyranny. When the 
reformation came under the leadership of lyUther, 
there followed, unfortunately, through succeed- 
ing centuries, the building up of division walls 
among Protestants, which, as we have already 
seen, have remained, yet with waning power, 
until the present time. That Christianity has 
prevailed against all these obstacles and is 
gradually overcoming them, is one of the 

236 



The Slow Progress of the Kingdom 

strongest proofs of its divine origin and power. 
At present the tendency toward unification 
of the forces of Protestantism is one of the 
marked features of our religious life. No less 
marked and no less important is the tendency 
to get away from the confusion and authority 
of human creeds and confessions of faith, and 
get back to the simplicity which is in Christ, 
and to the Christianity which he taught and 
exemplified. We may, therefore, reasonably 
anticipate much more rapid progress for the 
kingdom of God in the future than it has made 
during the preceding centuries of its history. 
With the Church united in Christ and under 
Christ, intent only on making his reign univer- 
sal over the hearts and lives of men, and laying 
under contribution all science, art, inventions 
and discoveries, and consecrating the world's 
accumulated knowledge and wealth for the fur- 
therance of the kingdom of God and its right- 
eousness, the strongest faith can not anticipate 
the rapid progress and the magnificent achieve- 
ments which are to mark the history of 
Christianity during the present century. But 
whether the time be long or short, there can be 
no doubt that the kingdoms of this world, with 
all their glory and progress and power, are to 

237 



Helps to Faith 

become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
to whom be dominion and majesty and power, 
forever and ever! Amen. 



238 



XII 
THE CREED OF UNBEUEF 

It might be well before closing this consid- 
eration of the things which make for faith, to 
take a glance at the negative side of this sub- 
ject and see what is the creed of unbelief, and 
whether that offers something better suited to 
our human nature than that which faith offers. 
If the honest inquirer after truth, as he has 
followed us in these pages, feels that there are 
difficulties in the way of faith, after all is said 
and done, it is believed that by a candid look 
at the other side he will perceive that the 
difficulties in the way of unbelief are far more 
numerous and vastly more serious. 

If the testimony of our religious instincts, as 
to the existence of a superior Being worthy of 
the soul's adoration, is not to be accepted how are 
we to account for these instincts and spiritual 
perceptions? Why has man a religious and 
moral nature that cries out for the living and 
loving God if there be no such God to answer 
its cry? As the eye implies light, the ear 
sound, the mind truth, why does not the hun- 

239 



Helps to Faith 

ger of the human heart imply that which satis- 
fies this hunger? How is human nature, as 
we know it, with its longings, its spiritual 
capacities, its deathless aspirations, to be recon- 
ciled with a universe that has in it nothing to 
answer these high demands? Why these deep 
questionings of the human soul if there can be 
no satisfactory answers given to its questions? 
Schumann's ''Warum" has only interpreted 
the questioning of the universal heart of man 
when it asks: "Who am I? What am I 
for? How came I here? Under what law or 
lawgiver am I? What forces help to make and 
what to mar me? And what is my destiny?" 
Dr. layman Abbott has well said: "To each of 
these questions Christianity has a definite an- 
swer ready. It replies: 'You are a child of 
God; put here for character-building; by your 
Father; under his authority; dependent on him 
for success; and with immortal, incorruptible, 
eternal life your true destiny.' "* These are 
great and definite answers to deep and vitally 
important questions. They are answers that 
harmonize with what we know of man and the 
phenomena of his higher nature, and amply 
justify man's existence on the earth. They 



* "In Aid of Faith," pp. IS, 16. 

240 



The Creed of Unbelief 

make life worth living. What answer does the 
creed of unbelief give to these questions? 

If we question pure materialism, its answer 
to the questions above given are: **You are 
simply organized clay — a splendid animal, at 
the head of the class mammalia; you are here for 
no purpose above enjoyment of the present; 
you came here by accident, are under no law or 
lawgiver except that of human government; 
there is no guide to the forces that make or 
mar except experience, which teaches what 
gives the greatest amount of present enjoyment, 
and there is no destiny for you except death, 
dissolution and eternal oblivion.'* We need 
not pause here to suggest the insuperable diffi- 
culties in the way of such a creed. They may 
all be summed up in one question: *'How has 
this accidental creature, man, risen to so high a 
scale of intellectual and moral worth as to 
enable him to spurn such a philosophy, except 
in rare and abnormal specimens of the race, 
and frame another worthy of his high nature 
and destiny?'' Not only has the stream risen 
above its source, according to this theory, but 
we have the unheard of phenomenon of a 
mighty stream without any source! 

Agnosticism, the modern form of the infidel 

(16) 241 



Helps to Faith 

creed, lias little better to offer. To all the questions 
of origin, duty and destiny which the soul may 
ask, its stereotyped reply is: *'We do not know. 
If there be a God we can not know him, and if 
there be a life beyond we have no certain means 
of knowing that such is the case, or anything 
as to its character. We are here, we know not 
why; we are going, we know not whither. '' 
Does this kind of an answer furnish any 
solace to the heart that is grappling with the 
mystery of human existence and destiny? Does 
it impart any strength to the human soul to 
bear its burdens, perform its difficult duties and 
resist the temptations that beset us here? Kven 
the advocates of such a creed would hardly 
claim this for it. Some of them have been 
known to confess that the Christian view of life, 
here and hereafter, produces better results in 
the way of government, society and all that 
makes up what we call civilization than their 
own negative creed. But what incredible thing 
have we here: that a base superstition, such as 
Christianity is said to be, produces a higher and 
truer civilization than all the truth in the uni- 
verse can produce? The man that can accept 
that proposition need not hesitate at any mon- 
strous absurdity which may be offered him for 

242 



The Creed of Unbelief 

Hs acceptance. *'If weak thy faith why choose 
the harder side?" 

One has only to approach near enough the 
verge of that creed which unbelief presents in 
more or less chaotic form to look over the 
awful precipice, in order to see the abysmal 
depths of darkness and despair into which the 
world must plunge if it should go that way. 
But faith has taken the aggressive in these days 
and is demanding that unbelief shall give an 
account of itself before the bar of human rea- 
son and the facts of human nature. It is saying 
to the apostles of unbelief: "If you do not 
accept the Bible view of the world and of man, 
as originating in the creative act of God, how 
do you account for them?" Nor will it accept 
the superficial reply of atheistic science, that 
evolution is a sufficient explanation of all that 
is. What is the explanation of evolution? 
Who is the evolver? Evolution is a theory of 
the method of creation. If it proves to be the 
true theory, it only establishes the way in which 
God has created the world, and does not dis- 
pense with the Creator! What has unbelief to 
say about so wonderful a plan of creation as 
evolution is said to be, with no infinite intelli- 
gence to plan it and no infinite power to work, 

243 



Helps to Faith 

according to its method, in bringing into being 
this universe? It is dumb before such a ques- 
tion and seeks refuge in agnosticism. 

In like manner, believers are asking the 
advocates of materialism and agnosticism to 
give some intelligible explanation of sin, of the 
consciousness of guilt, of the need of pardon, 
and of all those spiritual phenomena associated 
with religion. But for none of these things 
has the creed of unbelief any satisfactory ex- 
planation. How can a theory which sacrifices 
God and His self-manifestations to men by 
its pre-suppositions against the supernatural, 
which has no place in its philosophy for 
Christ and the incarnation, give any adequate 
solution of the problems arising out of man's 
origin, nature and destiny? Evidently he 
who would find a satisfactory answer to the 
deepest and most vital questions of his soul 
must turn away from the cold and barren nega- 
tions of unbelief to the creed which has as its 
sum and substance not a doctrinal abstraction, 
but the divine personality, who said: *'A11 
things have been delivered unto me of my 
Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the 
Father; neither doth any know the Father save 



244 



The Creed of Unbelief 

the Son and he to whomsoever the Son willeth 
to reveal him." (Matt. 11:27, 28). 

To the Son of God, then, must the soul-bur- 
dened inquirer come for an answer to those 
questions which relate to the being and charac- 
ter of God and man's relations and duties to 
him, and which, therefore, involve his eternal 
destiny. To this quest of truth he invites us 
in the gracious invitation: "Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I 
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you 
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in 
heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.'' 
(Matt. 11:28, 29.) 

Here, then, at the feet of Jesus, the Man of 
Galilee, whither our investigations have led us, 
let us take our place as learners and find rest to 
our souls. He will not only answer our ques- 
tions, by showing us the Father and teaching 
us His will, but He will bear our burdens, 
forgive our transgressions, fulfill our highest 
aspirations, and lead us on in the path of 
spiritual progress until our faith shall brighten 
into perfect vision and we shall see Him as He 
is and be like Him. 



245 



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